How do we connect with past, present, and future ancestors through textile practices?

Join MVS Curatorial Studies student Samantha Lance for an in-depth conversation with the artists Par Nair, Julie Gladstone, and Carol Ann Apilado as part of the exhibition The Love that Remains. The conversation will explore the relationships between the artists and their matrilineal legacies, cultural heritages, and belief systems. It will offer deeper insight into how the artists respond to and collaborate with family heirlooms through the intimate processes of hand-embroidery, knitting/sewing, and loom-weaving. The conversation will discuss the importance of revitalizing ancestral knowledge and stitching life stories into fabrics that contain the presence of mothers and grandmothers across generations, geographies, and histories. Reflecting on the female labour and creative expressions of their ancestors, the artists will discuss how they use textile practices to reconcile with histories of colonialism or experiences of displacement within their familial narratives.

The event is free and all are welcome.

The Love that Remains is on view at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto from May 1 to July 27, 2024.

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About the Artists

Par Nair (she/her) is an Indian-born interdisciplinary artist, researcher and educator who lives and makes in the Greater Toronto Area (Canada). Her practice encompasses oil paintings, hand embroidery, installation, and creative writing and focuses on dual identities, hybrid cultures and the fragmented realities of migrants. She has an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design from OCAD University and has shown her works nationally and internationally. In her work, she unravels and reimagines historical narratives of Indian women.

Julie Gladstone is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, textiles, performance, video and writing. Born in Toronto, Canada, she received her MFA from OCAD University (2022) and BFA from Concordia University, Montreal (2006). Her work centers on themes related to the healing process, motherhood, diaspora, intergenerational trauma, internal mapping, and technologies of intuition. Her work can be found in many private and corporate collections and has been exhibited internationally.

Carol Ann Apilado (b. Oslo) is an artist, designer and muralist currently based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Over the past decade, Apilado has created numerous graffiti and street art murals throughout the city and abroad. After learning in 2018 that her paternal grandmother came from a family of weavers in Bangar, La Union, Philippines, she expanded her artistic practice to include floor loom weaving. Apilado continues to remember, preserve and share this knowledge through teaching and making handwoven fabrics and installations.

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About the Curator

Samantha Lance is a curator and writer originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and currently based in Toronto. She holds a BFA with Distinction in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University and is completing the MVS Curatorial Studies program at the University of Toronto. Samantha has worked as a freelance writer and Curatorial Intern for The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery and a Curatorial Assistant and Registrar for the Art Gallery of Algoma, and she has volunteered as a Gallery Guide for the Art Gallery of Ontario. She is a recipient of the John and Myrna Daniels Foundation Opportunity Award.