Re.Stance Panel: Ancestral Threads
Sunday, May 31 | 1 PM - 1:45 PM
$10 | General
$5 | Students & Textile Museum Members
Join us for an afternoon three-part panel series at the Textile Museum of Canada, presented by Re.Stance, exploring textile histories and cultural memory through ancestral knowledge, circular and regenerative design systems in practice, and future material innovation through decolonial thinking and biofabrication.
Panel 1 – Ancestral Threads – Decoding Textile Histories, Colonial Systems & Embedded Knowledge
Panelists: Korina Emmerich, Par Nair, Aminata Mboup, and Vivian Huang
Moderator: Isabelle Sain
Ancestral Threads explores textiles as living archives—carriers of memory, lineage, and encoded knowledge. Artists and designers reflect on translating ancestral practices into contemporary work without flattening or commodifying them.
The conversation examines authorship, cultural ownership, and the tension between preservation and evolution, while questioning how emerging technologies intersect with sacred and inherited systems. At its core, the panel asks: how can creative work restore agency and shape more culturally intelligent systems?
This programming is produced in collaboration with Re:Stance as part of the sustainable fashion symposium Temporality: A Love Letter to Gaia.
Panelist Biographies
Korina Emmerich
Korina Emmerich is an artist, designer, and founder of EMME Studio, a slow fashion label rooted in Indigenous futurism, sustainability, and social justice. Through her work, she explores how fashion can challenge colonial systems while creating space for community, education, and cultural visibility. She is also the co-founder of Relative Arts in New York City and recently launched the inaugural Indigenous New York Fashion Week.
Par Nair
Par Nair is an Indian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist and educator whose practice spans painting, embroidery, installation, and writing. Through deeply personal and speculative work, she explores diasporic memory, ancestral connection, and imagined futures. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and she currently teaches painting, drawing, and art theory at OCAD University.
Aminata Mboup
Aminata Mboup is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, design, and digital storytelling. Born in Dakar, Senegal and based between Dakar and Toronto, her practice explores memory, spirituality, materiality, and what she describes as “future cultural histories.” Through sculptural forms and immersive storytelling, her work reflects on care, transformation, and the relationship between ancestral knowledge and contemporary experience.
Vivian Huang
Vivian Huang, also known as Cereal Artist, is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist recognized for transforming sneakers and reclaimed sportswear into sculptural art and wearable objects. Blending upcycling, fashion, and contemporary craft, her work challenges ideas of waste, value, and consumer culture while bringing new life to everyday materials. Her innovative approach has led to collaborations with brands including Puma, Nike, and UGG.
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