What Free Brings to a Project

Wall Scale
No Limits

From 80-foot commission murals to 150-foot festival works. Scale is a feature of the practice, not a constraint.

Materials
Paint, Projection, Mixed Media

Exterior and interior paint. Nighttime projection mapping layers. Mixed media installations. Each project uses what the story requires.

Work Mode
Team and Solo

Experience leading creative direction across collaborative teams and executing independently. Comfortable at both scales.

Travel
Available

Available for commissions beyond Bellingham and the Pacific Northwest.

Cultural Scope
Coast Salish and Cross-Tribal

Grounded in Coast Salish tradition, with experience collaborating across tribal nations as part of multi-artist projects.

Community Integration
Standard Practice

Community engagement, youth programming, and cultural consultation are part of every project. The work is not delivered to a community. It is built with one.

Why Indigenous Consultation Matters

Public art doesn't exist in a vacuum. Every wall, every plaza, every waterfront installation sits on land with a history, an ecology, and a living culture. When that context is missing from the design process, the work shows it.


Bringing an Indigenous consultant into a project from the beginning, not as a finishing gesture, is how you build work that belongs to a place. Free Borsey carries deep knowledge of the Coast Salish territory and the communities whose stories and relationships with the land make that territory what it is. His perspective transforms a good project into one that earns its place.


His expertise extends well beyond the visual. Free brings years of grounded knowledge across environmental science, cultural education, community organizing, and Indigenous advocacy, making him a collaborator who strengthens a project at every layer.

Environmental Knowledge

Trained through years of work with Children of the Setting Sun Productions and the Setting Sun Institute, Free brings Indigenous ecological knowledge — reef net systems, clam garden stewardship, Salish Sea ecology — that formal environmental science frequently overlooks.

Cultural Accuracy & Sensitivity

Coast Salish oral literature, ceremony, traditional technology, and place names are not interchangeable or generic. Free ensures that imagery, language, and representation are grounded in the specific territory and community being honored, not borrowed broadly from "Indigenous culture."

Community Relationships

Authentic community engagement requires trust that is built over years, not acquired through process. Free's relationships with Lummi Nation leadership, elders, and the broader Coast Salish community open doors that a standard outreach process cannot.

Advocacy & Legislative Fluency

From Washington Conservation Action to the Climate Protection Act, Free has navigated Indigenous priorities at the policy level. He understands how to frame projects within regulatory and funding landscapes that touch on Tribal rights, consultation requirements, and environmental justice.

Youth & Education Programming

Free brings experience designing intergenerational programs that center Indigenous youth as participants, not subjects. Projects with an educational or community engagement component benefit from this lens from the start.

"The land already has a story. The job is to listen before you make anything." Tsx'vilum Free Borsey

Ready to begin
a conversation?