Setting Sun Labs

Breaking Ground Spring 2025

Children of the Setting Sun is developing Setting Sun Labs in our newly gifted building in the Downtown Arts District in Bellingham, Washington. 

For the first time, we will have a space open to the public where we can invite the community and our partners to collaborate and walk with us on this journey to change hearts and minds. 

“As storytellers, we’re answering the call to action.”

— Darrell Hillaire

Our new home will contain an
Immersive Experience Gallery,
a Coast Salish Lifeways Gallery,
maker spaces for our artists to create
and interact with each other and the community, media production studios,
a Storyteller-in-Residence Program,
a Digital Heritage Library,
gathering spaces, and more. 

At the heart of our lab is the continued urgency to drive social and environmental change for the benefit of all people and communities. Our storytellers and innovators will continue to explore real solutions to climate resilience and biodiversity protection and regeneration while upholding Indigenous rights.

Our transformative stories–centered, inspired, and produced–by Indigenous voices, will inspire a shift in culture at scale.

Setting Sun Labs will be a much needed place of hope and a resource for future generations.

We will build on nearly a decade of nationally acknowledged work in our purpose-built Lab, accelerating Indigenous innovation.

We understand our shared responsibility to create a space of cross-cultural learning through Coast Salish stories, lifeways, and art. We see the space as a vibrant storytelling lab and a "gateway to the Salish Sea."

Our immersive labspace will be open to the public in Spring 2026.