Weaving Cultural Identities - 2021 National Tour
SEPTEMBER 18th, 2021 - NOVEMBER 6th, 2021
Main Gallery
Featured Artists:
Textile Artists: Angela George, Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph, Dawn Livera and Adrienne Neufeld, Krista Point, Nadia Sajjad, Ruth Scheuing and Mary Lou Trinkwon, Shamina Senaratne, Michelle Sirois Silver, Debra Sparrow, Robyn Sparrow
Graphic Artists: Doaa Jamal, Damian John, Sholeh Mahlouji, Michelle Nahanee, Kit Walton
The Vancouver Biennale presents the Weaving Cultural Identities national touring exhibition, hosted by the Penticton Art Gallery.
Weaving Cultural Identities explores multicultural identity and intercultural relations through traditional weaving as a storytelling medium. Graphic artists and weavers from Vancouver’s immigrant Muslim communities and Coast Salish Indigenous communities including Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Tl'azt'en were brought together in collaboration to create a series of 10 small-scale “prayer rugs” inspired by Islamic prayer rugs and ceremonial Indigenous weavings.
The weavings are a visual manifest of prominent, national dialogues surrounding the reconciliation of heritage, and the sharing and celebration of cultural knowledge, symbolism and self-identification through textile traditions. This multi-part project is part of Vancouver Biennale’s 2018-2020 curatorial theme, “re-IMAGE-n”.
In a contemporary, global society of mixed cultures and values, how do we begin to navigate heritage and diverse beliefs? Whether shaped by centuries of rootedness or generations of movement, how do we come together to understand these diverse experiences? What can we learn through self-reflection about our ancestral histories, and what can we learn from each other?
As an exploration into the multiple narratives of the land now known as Canada, Weaving Cultural Identities brings together communities to acknowledge and celebrate local Indigenous and migrant histories within the analogous traditions of storytelling through weavings. Artists from various cultural backgrounds work with Muslim and Indigenous artists to reconcile traditions, to share, learn and celebrate cultural knowledge through symbolism and self-identification in textile traditions.
Textile artists and graphic artists of different backgrounds were invited to work together as collaborators. Together, they developed a platform for community dialogue through the creative process, centered around complex issues of belonging, displacement, diaspora, assimilation, and honouring the land. Based on the artists’ experiences and histories, this series of weavings celebrate the rich significance of textile arts in a historic and spiritual context through the reconceptualization of prayer rugs and other similar sacred weaving or textile traditions.
Weaving and textile arts are a universal medium used for recording and sharing history. Local motifs, patterns, materials, and landmarks bear a thread of similarity in their depiction; local prayer rugs are associated with a spiritual connection to place. By connecting communities through integrating motifs and design elements from each cultural and artistic tradition, this project encouraged artists to dig deeper in order to explore their own sense of cultural identity, while representing part of a larger, local narrative that honours ancestral legacies and celebrates intercultural relations. This is an opportunity to learn about each other through creation which is rooted in cultural tradition, symbolism, materials, and colours – a celebration of the threads that connect us.
Zarina Laalo, Curator
Lori Lai, Exhibition Coordinator
