Kaleidoscopia

A vibrant patchworked shade canopy design for Shambhala Music Festival, 2025

A Patchworked Party for the Sky

This summer, I had the absolute joy of designing a shade structure for the Little Garden Circle Stage at Shambhala Music Festival - a legendary BC festival with an equally legendary creative crew. Months before arriving on site, I teamed up with the brilliant Kate Tupper (Farm Decor Manager) to dream up something magical for the space. I had a few site photos, not many measurements, and a lot of ideas.

What emerged was Kaleidoscopia (totally unofficial name I’ve given it). It was a fractal, patchworked tapestry designed to catch sunlight and explode it into colour.

Concepting Work.

Sewing Camp: Shambhala Edition

I arrived on site at the Farm ten days before the festival and set up a makeshift sewing camp in the food court area (basically a big open shed filled with picnic tables). It was full chaos in there. There was fabric scraps, extension cords, sewing machines, dust, and a collection of other art projects being painted and glued all around us.

Outdoor Sewing Sweatshop!

I had a team of 5-6 incredible sewists who joined me in cutting hundreds of squares (big and small) and triangles from twelve different fabrics. It was… a lot…. and it was so wonderful. Spending a week in summer sewing outside with friends? Ideal.

Math, Rigging and Midnight CAD

While the sewing team pieced everything together, we also had to figure out the rigging. I worked closely with the site crew to install new vertical posts and tensioned wires — the bones the tapestry would hang from. That’s when the brain-melting geometry kicked in.

Once the wires were up, we had to work backwards to figure out the exact trapezoid shape each panel needed to be. They were all different because the wires fanned outward from the stage.

Fresh Posts.

Math.

I may have stayed up until 1 a.m. on the second-last night doing CAD on a friend’s laptop to solve it. Eventually, I figured it out and I was reminded (as I always tell my students) that sewing is actually 50% maths. The next day, we cut the final shapes, hemmed the edges, added webbing and D-rings, and got everything ready to hang.

The Curtain Rises

On the final work day, we lifted the panels into place. We even had time to add some fabulous tulle details.

Check out the finished piece. A wonderful little hub for running festival workshops. As soon as the sun hit the patchwork canopy, it turned into a vibrant, colourful mosaic. I love the way the panels cast the geometric shadows onto the white backdrop (this was used for really cool projection art at night time).

She’s cute.

Friends under the canopy. Shoutout to Krista for wearing a matching Kaleidoscopia-esque swimsuit.

What a trip!

I learnt a lot throughout this project about adapting plans on site and being resourceful with what you have. A huge thank you to the wonderful sewists who helped bring this piece to life. We weren’t exactly working in ideal conditions, but look what we made together!
And of course, a huge thank you to Kate Tupper and the Shambhala Farmily.