Studio Rat: Pressing Futures

Grimsby Public Art Gallery

Studio Rat, Lamination 1.0. Photo: Genelle Cruz

Studio Rat: Pressing Futures

September 11 – November 28, 2026
Opening Reception: September 12, 2026, 2–4pm
Pressing Futures: DIY Plastic Crafting: November 28, 2026, 1–4pm
Grimsby Public Art Gallery

Pressing Futures is a solo exhibition by Studio Rat that brings together material investigation and collaborative making with waste plastics. The presented work extends the duo’s ongoing inquiry into plastic as artefact—something to sort through, press, quilt and record rather than discard. Pressing Futures marks a material turn in Studio Rat’s practice, the artists’ first major work built without air. The artists explore what plastic can hold when it is pressed, layered, and frozen in time.

At the exhibition’s centre is Lamination 1.0, an architectural intervention that diagonally bisects the gallery, drawing visitors through its surface to encounter its material qualities up close. Composed of 3,600 handmade tiles and more than 70 pounds of reclaimed sheet plastics and packaging, Lamination 1.0 gathers together years of collected material from Studio Rat’s archive and new contributions from community members who share the same habit of holding on. Each tile holds traces of the hands it has passed through, emerging as a living archive of waste and care, inviting us to reflect on the ways we handle, remember, and reimagine waste.

Studio Rat, Lamination 1.0. Photo: Genelle Cruz

Related Programming

Pressing Futures: DIY Plastic Crafting
Saturday, November 28, 2026, 1–4pm
Grimsby Public Art Gallery
Free | Register here

The community of Grimsby is invited to join Studio Rat for a free, hands-on workshop exploring creative and DIY ways of transforming soft waste plastics into new materials. During this 3-hour session, participants will learn how to clean, cut, collage, and heat-laminate reclaimed single-use plastics using household irons and an industrial heat press.

The 3 hour format combines a brief artist talk focused on Studio Rat’s making methods and research in plastic. The artists will then lead attendees through various demos of DIY heat fusing techniques with plastic. Participants will learn how to transform soft plastic waste into new materials using household irons and an industrial heat press, making their own heat laminated plastic collages which we will then sew into small pouches/pencil cases for participants to take home.

The goal is for attendees to learn more about plastic, gaining practical and creative skills for working with the material, while engaging with broader questions about material lifecycles and circular approaches to making. The workshop creates opportunities for community members to engage directly with the production techniques explored in Pressing Futures. We are excited to expand the curriculum to connect with the local context of Grimsby and its relation to plastic production and pollution in the region.

Dom Di Libero and Emily Allan. Photo: Iain Ailles

About the Artists

Studio Rat is the shared creative practice of artists Emily Allan and Dom Di Libero. Founded in 2018 as a site for investigation into plastics, inflatables, and community building, their collaborative work explores the playful and speculative potential of reclaimed plastics through soft sculpture and installation, often positioning inflatables as tools for soft resistance, ecological storytelling, and gathering. Studio Rat’s immersive body of work pushes against oppressive built environments with a prime directive of silliness and play and has been featured in events and exhibitions across Canada, including Nuit Blanche (Toronto, 2025) and Arsenal Contemporary Art (Montreal, 2024). Both Emily and Dom hold bachelor’s degrees in interior design from Toronto Metropolitan University and live and work in Tio’Tia:Ke/ Mooniyang/ Montréal.

The expansive nature of pneumatics as medium prompts Studio Rat to think speculatively as they explore what new relations can emerge between plastic, craft and art. Looking to plastic as past, present, and future artefact, Studio Rat positions the material as a curious and amorphous conduit for queer ecological theory and broader systems thinking. By quilting and subsequently inflating plastic discards, Studio Rat not only directs our gaze towards plastic, but renders it habitable, expanding possibilities of what plastic is and could be.

Play, softness, and sustainability inform Studio Rat’s approach to space-making and DIY fabrication methods, which they engage with through a continuous cycle of rework and reuse. The artists iteratively repurpose discarded plastics and old projects to produce inflated works whose form and materiality suggest new possibilities for interaction with our human and non-human surroundings. Their process employs methodologies from quilting and other textile arts to craft hand-made realms where queer futures and landscapes can be imagined. Through material, process, and medium, the artists explore the surreal and nostalgic nature of their desires and dreams.

About Grimsby Public Art Gallery

The Grimsby Public Art Gallery was founded in 1975 as a committee of the Grimsby Public Library Board, creating an active and accessible community art gallery in the lower level of the Grimsby Public Library. In 1999, the Gallery became a separate sub-department of the Town of Grimsby, although we still shared a building with the Library. In 2004, both the Gallery and the Library moved into a new purpose-built facility that has significantly enhanced our ability to fulfill all aspects of our mandate.

Forging and maintaining connections with our community is of primary importance, and we do this through our careful selection and presentation of exhibitions and programs. We preserve art by our responsible care of the permanent collection. We encourage visual art by maintaining an open, welcoming gallery for all visitors and offering a range of thought-provoking art and related programs.

Grimsby Public Art Gallery
18 Carnegie Lane
Grimsby, ON L3M 1Y1
905-945-3246
www.grimsby.ca/Art-Gallery

Instagram @thegpag
Facebook @thegpag

Gallery Hours:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 10am – 5pm
Thursday: 10am – 9pm
Saturday: 12pm – 5pm

For more information, please contact:
Sylvia Beben
Art Gallery Manager/Curator
Grimsby Public Art Gallery
905-345-3246 x 2079
sbeben@grimsby.ca