This episode is part of a live conversation series between
The Craft and
IDS Vancouver, recorded at this year’s show on the Vicostone Main Stage.
On September 26, The Craft sat down with
James Nexw’Kalus-Xwalacktun Harry, a contemporary Coast Salish artist whose practice is challenging how Indigenous design intersects with art, architecture, and the built environment.
The son of Xwalacktun, a master carver and keeper of Coast Salish cultural knowledge, James grew up immersed in a tradition he continues to carry forward through monumental sculpture, digital fabrication, public art, and architecture.
The conversation begins with his childhood and the meaning of cultural inheritance, before opening into a larger exploration of identity, tradition, and possibility. For James, Coast Salish design isn’t a historical style to be preserved or applied as decoration: it’s a living, generative system with the potential to reshape how people think about space, structure, and the environments they inhabit.
From the crescent, circle, and trigon to the symbolism of portals, James shares the thinking behind these forms and their potential to move beyond the gallery and into the structures of everyday life. His work also challenges the Western tendency to separate art, architecture, objects, and space into distinct disciplines, opening up new possibilities for how Indigenous knowledge might inform contemporary design.
This conversation is about cultural continuity, the future of architecture, and the power of ancestral knowledge to shape what comes next.
Please enjoy this thoughtful dialogue and Q&A with the incredible artist and futurist, James Harry.
Sound engineering: @alikadong
Photography: @mrjeremywong
Marketing support: @maizmcknight
[TIMESTAMPS]25:50 - Growing up
28:04 - How he viewed the inheritance of artistic skill when he was young versus now
35:02 - Portals and the significance they have in Squamish culture
40:15 - What he would say to his daughter
41:51 - What can Coast Salish design could become
What is The Craft with May Globus?
The Craft is an audio-visual collection of intimate conversations with creatives, entrepreneurs, and pioneers across disciplines. Each episode weaves through their personal backstory, creative process, and way of living—an exploration of the humanity that connects us all.
Alongside the conversations, the show’s visual storytelling—through editorial-style photography—offers another way in. Like a modern-day magazine editorial, each image is a quiet window into the spirit of the guest and the world they’re shaping.