Projects / Artist Support & Training
Work Placements
A work placement at The Only Animal is an opportunity to learn arts administration skills, interface with the local arts community and gain knowledge about tangible practices that challenge climate anxiety. The Only Animal provides flexible mentorship opportunities for emerging artists to take the lead on projects while developing values-forward approaches to event creation. Weekly meetings tie together our remote team, and in-person events offer a space to explore and celebrate where we are in the process of learning—while putting on a killer show ;).
Students seeking internship or work placement opportunities at The Only Animal are encouraged to contact us at info(at)theonlyanimal.com. Tell us a bit about yourself and why you think you'd like to join our team.
2024-25 Work Placements
Stevan Oostenbrug
BRAGS: Stevan has developed his eco-printing practices, administrative techniques, artist portfolio, and teaching abilities, taking a lead role in social media management and organizing a series of Slow Social Club events.
About Stevan
Stevan Oostenbrug is a queer interdisciplinary artist, songwriter, and event organizer based in Vancouver, the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Stevan explores media including instrument building, mono-prints, fibre arts, and sculpture. His artistic practice touches on navigating relationships with mental illness, the interaction of humans and more-than-humans, gentleness, and collective action.
Stevan creates lyric driven indie-folk music and sound work with a focus on curiosity and interconnection between the individual, their community, and their environment. His sonic material emerges alongside Stevan’s intrinsic knowledge of harmony from church-going as a child, his curiosity for sound created from physical materials, and his deep need to connect authentically.
As an organizer, Stevan has co-curated and co-produced music events at Simon Fraser University and contributes to his student community as the current President of the Music and Sound Union. Stevan has performed at the 2023 and 2024 West Coast Composer Symposiums, participated in SFU’s student music and sound compilations, and SFU’s School of Contemporary Art’s Music and Sound Festivals. At The Only Animal, Stevan is facilitating a series of community events called Slow Social Club, with activities including cordage making, soundwalks and mediations, and varied eco-printing techniques.
Camila Rueda
BRAGS: Camila is developing her skills in community engagement, teaching and event production, sharing her love for working with upcycled materials at Slow Social Club events and through student engagement.
About Camila
Camila Rueda Furuzawa is a Mexican-Colombian writer, multidisciplinary artist and event organizer currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Her art employs different materials such as painting, sculpture, drawing and manipulation of textiles to showcase her multicultural background, focusing her work on the syncretism of social and cultural aspects that influence her life. Her family being Colombian and Mexican of Japanese-Spaniard descent, has pushed her to participate in discourses related to racism, colonialism, and exploring the intersectionality of cross-cultural ideologies and concepts, balancing the involvement of activities and principles, while building and managing a personal identity.
She is part of the @yarnspinnersociety and recently organizing and assisting events such as the Community Cafe in Burnaby Neighborhood House (BNH), and other venues. These art collectives are highly interested in community oriented projects, such as interacting with people, where through different activities with recycled materials, community interaction is encouraged and advocates for environmental consciousness and involvement. She considers her art and writing a political space to discuss international and current concepts, focusing on gender and sexual violence, especially in Latin America, as alongside multicultural intersectionality and environmental topics.