Body, Labour & Land in Contemporary Craft

DesignTO is a registered charitable arts organization that believes design can create a sustainable, just, and joyful world. From January 23 – February 1, 2026, the DesignTO Festival features 100+ free events across Toronto, showcasing hundreds of artists and designers. Known as Canada’s largest annual design festival, DesignTO has welcomed over 1 million attendees, reached 2.6 billion people through media, supported 7+ creatives, and generated $120 million in tourism impact.“DesignTO isn’t just a festival; it’s an anti-loneliness machine,” co-founder Christina Zeidler remarked, underscoring the organization’s power to foster belonging and spark vital conversations about design’s role in shaping a better world.

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Join DesignTO for a discussion with artists on craft practice as an act of resistance and invention.

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&#x27;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. <h3>SPEAKERS</h3>

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.<a href="http://www.mollyjfcaldwell.com" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">www.mollyjfcaldwell.com</a>

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.<a href="https://juliarosesutherland.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">juliarosesutherland.com</a>

‘In Conversation’ SeriesSpotlighting 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.

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Body, Labour & Land in Contemporary Craft

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