Mixed Media Weaving: Weaving with Wires Workshop (Beginner)
Update: This workshop has sold out.
Please email Isabelle Sain (isain@textilemuseum.ca) to be added to the waitlist.
Jan 16, 23, 30
FREE
Spots are limited
Our sustainability workshop series, Second Life, will be hosting our first workshop to start off the series with designer and researcher Amelia Ferguson. Amelia will be facilitating Weaving with Wires; a workshop first developed with InterAccess to explore E-waste upcycling practices and textile processes. Weaving for textile construction has been practiced for over 5000 years and the Jacquard loom is said to be the basis of our original computers, lending the strong connections between textile practices and new media. We will discuss the connections between textiles, weaving, and new media. We will then explore the principles of weaving through the making of your own weavings from recycled textiles and e-waste using individual looms provided by TMU’s Design and Technology Lab. By incorporating textiles and e-waste, we are not only constructing a unique piece of woven cloth but also highlighting the material and ecological connections between technology and textiles.
Participants are welcome to take their looms home with them to further practice their new skills and develop their own material making techniques. All materials will be provided for the workshop through the Textile Museum’s ReUse program. Using repurposed materials both explores sustainable textile practices and fosters unique artistic narratives.
Open to all skill levels, with instruction provided by Amelia.
About Second Life: Sustainable Textile Workshops
Second Life: Sustainable Textile Workshops is a series of free; sustainability focused workshops developed with the Textile Museum of Canada and contemporary local artists. The series converges ecological thinking with art-making opportunities for our community. Starting in January, each month, the Museum will bring in an artist who confronts the climate crisis by rethinking materials and reimagining textile processes, decolonial methodologies, and sustainable craft traditions. Together, artist and participants will reform reused materials to create new works of art through a variety of techniques. These textile-focused artistic mediums will include weaving, embroidery, crocheting, quilting, natural dyeing, felting, upcycled fashion, or mixed-media fibre practices.
About the Facilitator
Amelia June Ferguson is a second year MA Fashion at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Fashion Studies program and holds a BDes (Hons.) from the TMU Fashion Design program. With a focus on Luneville embroidery hook techniques and 19th century sequin manufacturing, Ferguson’s research centers around French Haute Couture and the making of luxury textiles. Her research is thematically informed by Freudian theory focused on stains, decay, fear and desire associated with material culture. Ferguson has worked within the Toronto fashion industry over the last decade within the evening wear sector; her professional experiences inform her creative and research pursuits. Her creative work incorporates both experimental weaving and embroidery techniques, incorporating art- based research methods and deconstructivist philosophies as a way to evolve her embroidered art pieces.
We would like to thank Design + Technology LAB (Toronto Metropolitan University) and InterAccess for their support of this program.
This program was generously funded by Canada Council for the Arts.
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