Workshops: Intro to fish skin leather- Level 1

ARTIST BIO:

Janey Chang is an Artist, Land Based Educator, Fish Skin Tanner + Revivalist on a path to remembering how to be human and alive through the (re)learning of ancestral skills. She is a first generation Chinese Canadian woman living on Skwxwú7mesh and Tsleil-Waututh Ancestral Lands at the foot of the mountains and close to the ocean. Her main art form and livelihood is working with fish skin leather, where she gives new life to salmon skins from the restaurant industry that are destined for waste.

She was introduced to this skill 8 years ago by Benjamin Pixie and since expanded her practice learning methods from Lotta Rahme and Peter Ananin as well as by trial and error doing hundreds of tanning and dyeing experiments on her own. Fish Skin Tanning has helped her connect her to her Chinese heritage as well as to K’emk’emelay/Vancouver, the land she calls home. This passion has evolved into her livelihood, and she has had the honour of teaching fish skin tanning classes in person and virtually to thousands of humans of all ages in 17 countries, including many Indigenous communities who have distant memories of this old ancestral skill. Salmon continue to be her most important teachers and guides on her personal journey of self-discovery and connection to her ancestral heritage.