Body, Labour & Land in Contemporary Craft
Date and time
Location
Online event
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No Refunds
Join DesignTO for a discussion with artists on craft practice as an act of resistance and invention.
About this event
'Body, Labour & Land in Contemporary Craft' has been postponed. We will be in touch with all registrants once the event has been rescheduled.
Thank you for your understanding!
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DesignTOPlease join DesignTO for the 2022 series of ‘In Conversation’. This panel talk on contemporary craft brings together textile artist and educator Caryn Simonson, Mi'kmaq/Settler artist and educator Julia Rose Sutherland, and Yonsei artist and weaver Molly JF Caldwell. Together they explore the properties of materials both natural and synthetic, textiles as metaphors for community and body, labour as an act of repair and redemption, and craft practice as an act of resistance and invention.
SPEAKERS
Molly JF Caldwell is a Yonsei artist living and working in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, Alberta), who graduated from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2017. She focuses on labour-intensive textile processes to mediate contemporary and historical narratives around misogyny, generational trauma and pop culture.
Caryn Simonson is Programme Director for Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL) and is a practitioner, writer and curator. She is an international editorial board member for Textile: the journal of cloth and culture and the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies. For Textile, she guest-edited a special issue ‘Skin and Cloth’ exploring relationships between skin/cloth mimesis, material innovations and cultural /social contexts. At international conferences, she has presented papers including ‘Fashionable Bikers and Biker Fashion’ exploring relationships between luxury fashion brands (Chanel, Longchamp, Belstaff and Matchless) and motorcycling, heritage, value and craftsmanship, focussing on fashion “mini-films” and storytelling. More recently, her focus has been on athleisure and motorcycle imagery including papers on the Chanel x Pharrell collaboration mini-film and Vogue fashion editorials depicting motorcycles and fashion.
Julia Rose Sutherland is a Mi'kmaq (Metepenagiag Nation) / settler artist and educator (Assistant Professor at OCAD U) based in Tkaronto (Toronto). Sutherland's interdisciplinary art practice employs photography, sculpture, textiles and performance. She earned her MFA at the University at Buffalo (2019) and BFA in Craft and New Media at the Alberta University of the Arts (2013). She has exhibited nationally and internationally, recently showing work at the Bemis Center of Contemporary Art, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, K Art Gallery, WAAP Gallery, and 59 Rivoli Gallery (Paris). Sutherland is a recent recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts Creating Knowing Sharing award and the AFA Indigenous Individual Project grant.
‘In Conversation’ Series
Spotlighting artists and designers from Canada and the UK, DesignTO in partnership with University of the Arts London (UAL) and OCAD University presents an online series called 'In Conversation'. As the title suggests, faculty, students and alumni from UAL and OCAD will be in conversation with each other and industry experts to discuss contemporary issues, research and creation in design.
The ongoing collaboration between UAL and OCAD comes out of dialogue between the two universities, working on common areas of interest such as decolonization and sustainability. Joining UAL and OCAD to present 'In Conversation', DesignTO is a Toronto-based non-profit arts organization that produces Canada's leading and largest annual design festival, showcasing multidisciplinary ways of making and thinking.
Banner image: Julia Rose Sutherland. 'P'twewi (Be'de'wey) "Tea" ', 2019. Red Rose Tea sewn quilt, medical tape.
