Thiessen credits the idea to artmaker David Solnit, who uses visual spectacle to support mass protests. “It’s a way to turn what can often be a lot of standing around into creating something meaningful together,” she says. She’s led similar temporary murals for Earth Day events and climate marches.
Emily Thiessen and Cora Silvestru at the Courtenay Immigrant Welcome Centre. Photo by Charlie Karumi – CV/Arts
What brought Emily Thiessen to where she is today
Thiessen says she comes from “two lines of restless settlers.” Her mother’s family are Hokkien Chinese and Malaysian, and her father’s ancestors were Mennonites who immigrated to Treaty 1 territory (in what is now southern Manitoba) in the late 1800s. Born in Victoria, she moved to the Comox Valley in 2021 specifically to work at Wachiay Studio. She began screen printing as a way to make fundraiser T-shirts for pipeline protests, working with borrowed screens and DIY equipment.
Wanting to learn more, she discovered local screen-printing expert Andy MacDougall and waited out the pandemic for his “Squeegeerama” workshop to restart. When it finally did, she spent three days immersed in ink and squeegees, soaking up new techniques and ideas that left her buzzing with inspiration and energy. Soon after, she asked if they’d hire her—and they did.
Much of Thiessen’s work at Wachiay is screen printing other artists’ designs—a welcome break from the intense creative process of her own projects. In 2020, she spent nearly a year as a freelance illustrator, an all-consuming period she recalls as “making me feel a bit crazy.”
Mural for the Lake Trail Community School Society. Photo courtesy of the artist
The appeal of screen printing and public murals
When asked about her preferred medium, she points to screen printing and murals, which are tactile, physical, and collaborative. She appreciates screen printing for its “democratic” nature—affordable, easy to reproduce, and able to put art in many people’s hands—while murals belong wholly to the public. She relishes the difference: murals can be expansive and colour-saturated, while screen prints—each colour a separate layer—ask for precision and restraint.
Protest art through community collaboration
Right now, Thiessen is most energized by her work with Comox Valley 4 Palestine and other grassroots groups. She admits it can be hard to make art that’s “just pretty” when so much feels at stake. She sometimes sidesteps the word “activism,” worried it can make political engagement seem like a specialist role. Instead, she calls it “protest art”—creative work that draws people in and broadens a movement’s reach.
Herring and Kelp. Photo courtesy of the artist
Courtenay murals and local projects at Wachiay Studio
Thiessen says one of her favourite works to date is Herring and Kelp, a design that began as a commissioned painting for a fundraiser supporting the Nuchatlaht Nation’s land title claim. It became her first large-format screen print and now hangs in the homes of many friends. She also fondly recalls a recent mural for Lake Trail Community School, art-directed by middle-schoolers trading ideas for ice cream sandwiches. This was an anything-goes project that produced suggestions from a cougar with flowers on its back to a bisexual-flag salmon.
Next up is a winter-themed mural for downtown Courtenay’s Simms Alley, a collaboration with friend Leya Tess. At the end of the year, Thiessen will move to Taiwan on a Mandarin scholarship. Until then, she’ll keep making art that blends beauty and purpose, inviting people to see themselves—and the possibility of change—within it.
To see more of Emily Thiessen’s work visit:
INSTAGRAM.COM/ARCHIPELAGIC
EMILYTHIESSEN.CA
