Introduction

Welcome to TXTilecity – an interactive project that brings the city to life in stories and memories that show the significant role textiles have played in shaping Toronto’s urban landscape.

Introduction

Textiles have played a key role in shaping Toronto’s urban landscape, offering a unique lens into the rich history and cultural diversity of this dynamic, multi-faceted city.

Navigate Toronto with TXTilecity – an interactive map that builds community knowledge by drawing together experiences and stories to show the significance of textiles in shaping the city’s social, cultural, economic and architectural terrain. Through this website as well as TXTilecity mobile app, encounter key locations and discover the role of textiles in defining the urban landscape from early garment manufacturing and the performing arts, to the rise of the fashion industry and contemporary design. Explore some of Toronto’s defining stories, meet some of the city’s greatest characters and experience its diverse history in sites brought to life in audio and video documentary accounts.

Produced by the Textile Museum of Canada, TXTilecity extends the museum experience beyond our walls, to stimulate a public sense of inquiry, curiosity and creativity in a real world setting. Taking advantage of the unique insight into the urban fabric offered by the TMC, TXTilecity activates intangible culture in the form of layered stories associated with the city’s textile history, offering unique encounters with historical moments and collective memories that are essential to Toronto’s past, and definitive to its future.

About our collaborators

The Textile Museum of Canada has implemented new innovative partnerships for the development of TXTilecity – involving creative partners who bring a wealth of experience in interactive mobile projects and new technologies:

Year Zero One is a media arts organization committed to the production, development, and communication of cultural knowledge through interactive and site-specific practices. Founded in 1996, YZO supports new, hybrid forms of artistic and social practice, particularly art that explores intersections of new technologies with architectural and public space. YZO has led the development of the digital interface for TXTilecity as well as the video narratives that populate both web and mobile platforms.

Since 2003, [murmur] has been collecting and sharing audio recordings of first-person stories and memories related to particular urban locations. As an artist collective, [murmur]’s mission is to facilitate the presence of individual voices within official narratives, providing new insight into the wider social, civic, and cultural history of a given site and the communities and individuals connected to it. [murmur] has created the audio content available in the web, mobile and audio platforms of TXTilecity.

About the Textile Museum of Canada

The Textile Museum is one of Canada’s most engaging visual arts organizations. Dedicated to expanding knowledge, creativity and awareness, the TMC is a non-profit cultural institution that consistently brings historical practices to bear on contemporary lives. A rich international repository of more than 13000 textile artifacts, archaeological to contemporary, the Museum is one of the institutions perhaps best positioned to address the nuances of cultures and identities in a global context, and in Toronto as a global city. Through initiatives like TXTilecity, the Museum moves beyond its walls to connect to the diverse communities that surround it in new ways, and in new spaces. Creating meaningful life-long learning experiences is an important part of the TMC’s role and responsibility, offering a broad variety of exhibitions and programs that build understanding and engagement.

This project was made possible with the generous support of the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canada Interactive Fund

Produced by

Textile Museum of Canada

In collaboration with

Year Zero One + [murmur]

with the support of

Heritage Canada

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If you have questions or comments, send an email to txtilecity@textilemuseum.ca

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