Creating Soft Sculpture Through Braiding Workshop
Friday, September 25, 2026 | 1-4 PM
FREE
This workshop has been developed exclusively for Immigrant, Refugee, and Newcomer participants, with thanks to Toronto Arts Council Funding via their Newcomer and Refugee Arts Engagement program.
This workshop invites participants to transform discarded textile and repurpose them into soft sculptures through braiding, filling, and other techniques. It will introduce upcycling as a creative process, showing how worn or unwanted textiles can be given new meaning and purpose through artmaking.
Inspired by ideas of connection, memory, and the stories held in textiles, participants may bring a piece of clothing or fabric from home that they are comfortable altering into a textile sculpture. They will also have access to assorted fabric scraps provided by the Museum.
The workshop will begin with a brief introduction to contemporary textile practices and how artists transform discarded materials into artworks that communicate stories in non-linear ways. Participants will then learn braiding, filling, and other techniques to transform pieces of textile into three-dimensional soft sculptures. Through making the sculptures, participants will consider how textile can carry traces of the people, places, and memory connected to them.
No previous textile or sewing experience is required. All techniques will be demonstrated.
For any accessibility needs, please email Marium Durrani (mdurrani@textilemuseum.ca).
This workshop is part of the Museum’s workshop series: Liminal Threads. In this workshop series, the Museum aims to create space for newcomers, refugees, and immigrants, where they can bridge the divide of settling in Canada. Taught by local Immigrant, Refugee, and/or Newcomer artists, participants learn new modes of sustainable thinking, textile making techniques, and creating new community. We would like to thank the Toronto Arts Council Strategic Funding: Newcomer and Refugee Arts Engagement, for funding this program.
Facilitator Bio:
Niloo Inalouei was born in Tehran, Iran, and currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Working across drawing, textile, and installation, her work explores themes related to power structures, public and private life, displacement, and the spaces where these themes intersect.
Niloo holds a BFA from OCAD University and an MFA from York University and currently teaches in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University and the Department of Visual Arts at Brock University. Niloo has received several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, and her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and Iran.
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