Welcome back! The Textile Museum of Canada reopens to the public today, September 15, 2021, with FREE admission until December 31, 2021. Open Wednesday to Saturday, make sure to plan your visit by reading our Welcome Back blog post and COVID-19 Visitor Policies. We encourage you to reserve your online tickets in advance here.

Explore the newly renovated Textile Learning Hub! The Learning Hub is the new home for studio activities, our Library, our Life Cycle of a Textile display, and our reimagined Textile Reuse Program, featuring great deals on fabric and notions.

New to the Museum, on Wednesday evenings from 5-7 pm, and Saturday afternoons from 2-5 pm, the studio space in the Learning Hub will be available on a first-come, first-served basis for drop-in activities. Access to the space outside of these times will be subject to availability.

Visitors will be able to experience two new exhibitions at the Museum: And other monuments and Jagdeep Rania: Chase, alongside our returning exhibition, ᖃᓪᓗᓈᖅᑕᐃᑦ ᓯᑯᓯᓛᕐᒥᑦ Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios. Fall 2021 learning programs will provide opportunities to stay at home or visit the Museum as we transition to a hybrid model of online and in-person programming. Stay tuned to our What’s On page for all our upcoming programs.

Jagdeep Rania: Chase
September 15, 2021 – March 19, 2022

Featuring the work of Jagdeep Raina, Chase is a poetic exploration of the interplay of memory and migration, and of how both are mapped onto everyday landscapes. Raised and currently based in Guelph, Ontario, Raina shares stories of the Sikh diaspora, drawing upon personal records and those of his family who were among the migration to southern Ontario in the 1960s, as well as oral and archival histories of wider pioneering Kashmiri and Punjabi Sikh diasporic communities.

Rendering these narratives cinematically as embroidered tapestries as well as works on paper and two new films, Raina evokes the textured local and transnational geographies of longing and belonging that emerge in the quest to establish home in terrain that is unsettlingly remote. Read more

Chase is curated by Shauna McCabe and organized by the Art Gallery of Guelph with the support of the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.

And other monuments
September 15 – November 13, 2021

And other monuments traces the movement of the ‘Oriental rug’ and other orientalia in relation to colonial trade, imperial bordering, and power. The exhibition includes an interactive workbook, archival documents, tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) by textile artist Samar Hejazi, and an intervention of the British Museum by multidisciplinary artist Roya DelSol.

Placed alongside West Asian and Middle Eastern rugs, carpet bags, and other pieces from the Textile Museum of Canada’s permanent collection, And other monuments invites a reading of textiles as maps or guides which are capable of tracing broader relationships to who moves, what moves, and how transnational, globalized mobilities of goods have always relied on ‘immobilizations’ of people. Read more

Curated by Mitra Fakhrashrafi, Curator in Residence at the Textile Museum of Canada as part of the Creatives in Residence program made possible through a Seed Grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

ᖃᓪᓗᓈᖅᑕᐃᑦ ᓯᑯᓯᓛᕐᒥᑦ Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios
Exhibition extended to January 29, 2022

ᖃᓪᓗᓈᖅᑕᐃᑦ ᓯᑯᓯᓛᕐᒥᑦ Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios presents the little-known story of a group of Inuit artists and printmakers who produced a collection of graphic textiles in Kinngait, (Cape Dorset, Nunavut) in the 1950s and 60s – a period of social change that disrupted traditional language and relationships to the land. Made for interior décor during a period when artist-designed textiles were popular in North America and Europe, these mid-century designs depict legends, stories, and traditional ways of life. They provide vital points of connection between contemporary Inuit community members and the creativity and resourcefulness of previous generations.

This exhibition traces the evolution and impact of this textile initiative on Inuit graphic arts and explores its legacy through the work of Inuit fashion designers working today: Martha Kyak of InukChic; Nooks Lindell of Hinaani Design; and Tarralik Duffy of Ugly Fish. Read more

Sustainable Textile Teach-In: Mending with Sewing –Hems, Seams, & Notions with Yahn Nemirovsky
Wednesday September 29, 4–5:30 pm EST

Introducing our new free series of Sustainable Textile Teach-Ins on the theme of Mending, taking place from September through November!

Join us for the first installment of our Mending series; Mending with Sewing – Hems, Seams & Notions. In this virtual workshop, we will cover a variety of introductory techniques for repairing clothing with hand sewing. Focus on the repair of the sewn elements of a garment, such as seams, hems, and zippers, as well as how to sew notions such as buttons and clasps onto clothing.

Bring along a garment in need of sewn repairs, practice on a scrap piece of fabric, or simply join us to learn and apply your mending skills later! Stay tuned for the upcoming installments of this series of Sustainable Textile Teach-Ins, Mending with Patches and Mending Knits. All skill levels are welcome.
Register here.

Images from top to bottom: Jagdeep Raina, Memories of our vast, lush, punjabi alluvial plains find themselves resurrected in these diasporic baghs, 2019, embroidery thread on muslin. Courtesy of the artist; And other monuments Left: ‘Footprints in the Desert Sands’ by the T. Eaton Co Limited, c. 1930s. Left: cover; Top Right: Postcard image of Bazar Vakil, Shiraz, Iran; Bottom page 9; Installation image of Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios, photo by Darren Rigo.

Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Ave
Toronto, ON M5G 2H5
Wednesday: 11:30 am – 7 pm
Thursday – Saturday: 10 am – 5:30 pm | Accessibility
Textilemuseum.ca
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