What do you do with a decommissioned diesel truck? In Squamish, BC, a community of 30 people had an answer: turn it into a 20-foot glowing orca whale.
That is the idea behind the Orcar, a large-scale illuminated sculpture built on an old rusty flatbed, shaped into a Southern Resident orca named Granny. Big enough to walk inside, climb, and ready to travel to events across North America.
The project launched through Create Makerspace’s “Create Public Art” program, and it asks a question that feels especially pointed here in Skẃx̰wú7mesh (Squamish Nation) territory, at the edge of the Atl’ka7tsem (Howe Sound): what does it mean to transform a machine that warms the ocean into a creature that depends on it?
The idea started simply. We asked, “What subject symbolizes our bioregion and inspires wonder and compassion in our community?” The endangered Southern Resident orca felt the inevitable. The next step was to tell the story of human systems pushing their habitat towards collapse, and we found an old industrial truck as our medium.
Every Friday night from March through June 2026, we met at Create Makerspace. Our community was diverse, with experienced makers and first-timers keen to learn new skills. Some of us had never held a welding torch. Some had been building things for decades.
Together we learned welding, laser cutting, CNC, electronics, sewing, woodworking, and more. Giant steel ribs took shape. CNC-cut fins were removed from the machine and fitted into place. We prototyped lighting design on a tiny wooden mock-up before scaling to 7000 LEDs.
Building a 20-foot sculpture with rotating community participants is not the straightforward path. Every week brought new people with different experiences. Coordination required patience and the prioritization of community and learning over efficiency. There were sessions when the steel didn’t behave, and days when we had to completely redo hours of sewing.
The responsive lighting system was one of the trickier technical puzzles.
But community builds have a particular kind of resilience. When one person hits a wall, someone else steps in with a different tool or a different idea. And when it was crunch time before our first event, a dozen people were coming in every day (after their normal jobs) to work on the Orcar until 10 pm. That’s what community-built looks like in practice.
When you step inside the Orcar, standing in the belly of a whale, we want you to feel hope, inspiration, and wonder.
We are writing the next chapter of our story as a civilization. It’s a story in which we transform the machines of consumption into tools for regeneration, returning to our place as the custodial species of planet Earth.
Orcar invites visitors to step inside the belly of a glowing whale and imagine a civilization that transforms the machines of consumption into tools for regeneration, reclaiming humanity’s role as a caretaker of the planet. Photo courtesy of Orcar.
Art can evoke a sense of wonder, especially in times of darkness.
That’s the story we are telling, and we need help. The Orcar is now crowdfunding on Indiegogo to cover the material costs we’ve incurred in building it. Every contribution brings the whale to more people who will walk through and feel our story. By supporting the campaign, you’ll also get to take home a special piece of the Orcar we made for you.
The Orcar toured Otherworld in Vancouver Island last month and will be at the Bass Coast Festival in Merritt, BC this month and the Squamish Arts Festival in August, with more events announced soon. Back the campaign, follow the fluke on Instagram at @orcar.art, or find us on tour at orcar.art.
