Speaker Series :: Kathleen Vaughan :: The Future is Wool

Description

Beautiful, biodegradable, ethical, sustainable, wool is a miracle fibre for stitching and so much more. The glories, stories, and challenges of Canadian wool are highlighted in this illustrated talk about The Future is Wool, a collaborative stitched ‘tapestry’ that features image and text in both French and English, all embroidered with naturally dyed or undyed Canadian wool onto linen panels. Find out more about the process of this work’s creation – in progress through 2028 – including research into narrative embroidery projects such as its early inspiration, the famous medieval Bayeux Tapestry (ca. 1080), now delighting sold-out crowds at its temporary exhibition at the British Museum in London. For The Future is Wool, more than 300 people have so far contributed their own stitches at fibre festivals and pop-up events in Quebec and Ontario, some taking up the needle for the first time. The Future is Wool will include four large panels (each approximately 44 inches high x 66 inches wide) that integrate hand and digital embroidery as well as textile piecing of naturally dyed wool cloth, and multiple smaller digitally embroidered text panels of people’s ‘wool stories’. 

Kathleen will describe the collection of people’s stories via an online questionnaire, and the work with her team of Concordia University student research assistants and contributing embroiderers, all of whom will be named when the finished work is eventually exhibited. As important to the visual and material creation are the stories that we tell each other around the embroidery frame: through the slowness of handwork, skill trading, and collaborating, we share knowledge, generate personal well-being, and build community. 

Kathleen Vaughan (MFA, PhD) is an artist and academic with a trans-disciplinary orientation to questions of place and belonging and a resolute belief in the power of art to connect us as we address environmental and social challenges. Her studio and community projects reflect her love for green spaces, waters, and skies at home and abroad. She integrates textile practices such as digital and hand embroidery, as well as photography, audio, video, and text; and has exhibited in Canada, Iceland, Latvia, and the Netherlands. Kathleen chooses materials with a low environmental footprint, that ideally will biodegrade without adding plastic to our world. She is Professor of Art Education at Concordia University in Montreal. https://www.akaredhanded.com/

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