Social Fabric

Slowing down with textile-based practice instills a reflective pace in the maker, and creates a connection with the handwork that develops and evolves over time. This echoes the weaving and interweaving of our lives and relationships to each other, which similarly require care, mindfulness, reflection, practice, and a commitment to ongoing learning. We are reflecting together on two key ideas:

Interweaving

The more we collaborate, the more interwoven we become. We look for and make opportunities to come together to share - about ourselves, our skills, our art-making and our time. We work together to promote and engage in meaningful, actionable social change that weaves our communities, learnings and day-to-day practices together.

Mending

We are learning about repair, and looking to techniques of mending, patching and darning for inspiration: we’re mending our clothes, to keep them present and useful; we’re reflecting on our relationship to the environment, our knowledge of our locations on Gidakiiminaang, and mending our ways to leave a lighter, more thankful footprint; and we’re learning more everyday about what it means to live in the land now known as Canada, using daily practices of reflecting, connecting and making to mend the tears between us, weave new ways, and heal - as individuals and as a community.

Local and regional artists, practitioners, knowledge- and skill-holders have been generously sharing their skills and collaborating inter-generationally and cross-culturally with community and artistic team members to weave these approaches together into new, truly community-based works. We will work closely with local Indigenous Elders and knowledge keepers to ensure that the conveyance of these skills respects, observes and upholds cultural protocols.