Exhibition Notes: Finding Home in Kookum Lounge

At the Kelowna Art Gallery, an invitation to rest opens a conversation about shelter, family and the histories we carry into shared spaces.

During our visit, people settled comfortably into Kookum Lounge, sitting and spending time together. The installation by artist Jaimie Isaac seemed to invite that ease. But as we spoke with Isaac, it became clear that the materials surrounding us carried stories that extended well beyond the experience of rest.

Insulated tarps, floral Kookum-scarf fabric, sails and wooden poles bring together histories of family, migration, temporary shelter and relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers. The installation offers a place to gather while asking visitors to consider what it means to be welcomed—and what responsibilities come with entering someone else’s space.

Created in 2023, Kookum Lounge grew in part from Isaac’s observations of tent cities and the temporary structures people rely on for shelter. Those observations prompted her to consider the inequalities that determine who has a secure place to live. Insulated tarps form part of the installation’s structure, bringing the vulnerability of makeshift shelter into a space designed for comfort.

Above them, floral fabric associated with Kookum scarves introduces another dimension: the care passed between generations. Together, the materials hold contrasting experiences of shelter, from the reassurance of being looked after to the uncertainty of having nowhere permanent to go.

The sails bring a different history into the space. Isaac explained that they refer to the migration of settlers across water to what is now called Canada. They also carry personal significance. Two belonged to her father, and sailing was part of her childhood. At one point, she noticed a resemblance between the shape of a sail and the form of a tipi. That visual connection eventually became part of the work.

Although Kookum Lounge draws on the tipi’s architectural form, Isaac was clear that she had not created a traditional tipi. Instead, the installation brings together different materials and experiences, allowing family memories and broader questions about Indigenous-settler relationships to coexist within the same shelter.

When asked what home means in the work, Isaac answered simply:

“Home is working with community and family.”

Her father’s sails make that connection tangible. The installation also reflects her relationship with her mother and her Anishinaabe family. A member of Sagkeeng First Nation with British heritage, Isaac draws on these relationships to explore home as something shaped by the people whose lives and experiences we carry with us.

Her connection to the floral fabric is personal, too. In her published description of the original installation, Isaac wrote:

“I am a sailor and have received a kookum scarf from my great grandmother.”

The scarf connects her to a history of care across generations. Here, home extends beyond a building or a fixed place. It is something formed through family, memory and community.

The floral patterns also carry histories that reach beyond Isaac’s own family. Oral accounts from some Prairie Indigenous and Ukrainian-Canadian communities describe women exchanging or gifting these scarves. A 2025 study by Avery Shtykalo and Gabrielle Legault records recollections of scarves traded for moccasins or offered in appreciation for shared knowledge.

These exchanges took place within the wider history of colonization, but they also offer specific examples of women sharing goods and knowledge and possibly building relationships across cultural differences. That history prompts us to consider the responsibilities of entering someone else’s space, and the possibility of receiving what is shared without treating that generosity as a claim to ownership.

The installation’s construction adds another layer to that story. The Kelowna Art Gallery credits Steven Money, a member of Westbank First Nation, with harvesting and hand-peeling the twenty jack pine poles used in the work. His contribution makes the labour and knowledge involved in building the shelter part of its history. The structure visitors gather beneath is not simply an arrangement of materials; it is also the result of someone’s time, skill and relationship with the land.

Yet the comfort the installation offers exists alongside a reminder that secure shelter is not equally available to everyone.

We asked Isaac about this tension: the ease visitors seemed to feel inside the installation and the difficult histories its materials carry.

She welcomed the question. Ideals of intercultural exchange, she explained, exist alongside tensions shaped by politics, treaties and ongoing relationships on unceded land.

“I think it provides an opportunity to be in a safe place, to have these kinds of conversations that, frankly, I think that we need to have, and that we can’t cover it up.”

For Isaac, comfort is not a way to avoid difficult realities. It can make room to confront them.

When asked what she hopes visitors take away from the experience, Isaac returned to both rest and awareness.

“I hope they feel relaxed and restored and calm, and that the water that they’re listening to can make them conscious of their own waterways as relatives, and also think about sheltering and help them think about home a little differently from someone that is housed or unhoused, as well as relationships and reciprocity.”

A visitor might first notice the flowers before learning what lies beneath them. A sail might evoke a family memory before prompting thoughts about migration. The wooden poles might seem like a simple part of the structure until their origins reveal the labour and knowledge behind them.

For us, that is what lingered after the conversation: how much can be present in a space that initially feels so easy to enter.

Isaac offers a place to sit with those stories. Around us are materials shaped by movement, memory and care. Beneath us is a reminder of shelter’s uncertainty. And alongside us is room for someone else.

Kookum Lounge is on view in the Kelowna Art Gallery courtyard from September 19, 2026, through September 2027.