Gathering

Grounded in community participation, this installation presents over 40 pieces from the Museum’s permanent collection of over 15,000 objects from around the world.

Gathering explores themes related to migration and diaspora, the search for comfort in the domestic and familial, reclamation of ancestral traditions through contemporary artistic responses, and the relationship between textiles and the environment.

Choices of objects, responses, and retellings were gathered via open online calls for reflection, through partnerships with local organisations, and through artists’ interventions.

The Museum is pleased to showcase new acquisitions in this installation, including a 19th-century Ainu attush robe from Hokkaido, Japan, and eight beaded works by Vancouver-based, Anishnabekwe artist Bev Koski. Gathering features original digital content created in partnership with the Afghan Women’s Organisation, as well as contemporary artworks and digital responses by Par Nair, Jung-Ah Kim, Katy Biele, and others.

In Winter 2024, the installation was updated to include digital responses and artwork created in partnership with the curatorial collective Mending the Museum. Mending the Museum is a collaborative duo comprised of Karina Román Justo, visual arts scholar and educator, and Camila Salcedo, interdisciplinary visual artist and educator. Artists featured in this partnership include Lan “Florence” Yee, kaya joan, Khadija Aziz, denirée isabel, Shaheer Zazai, and Paola Torres Núñez del Prado.

Images courtesy of the Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.