2 sessions with the community to gauge interest and begin diving into the themes of “Connection/Disconnection”

In January of 2023 I began a bi-weekly group at Village Square Leisure Centre. This group was made up of five community members that are all fibre artists in their own different ways. Together we dived deeper into the theme of “Connection/Disconnection” and what it meant to us. We discussed what Village Square meant to us, what community meant to us, and how we wanted to connect with the community and integrate our ideas.

We also talked about history of fabric for activism. We broke down how all this “fit” together then designed and refined our "how might we" questions and purpose. Lastly we researched different fabric art processes to determine what would work for our purpose and played with methods of fabric alteration.

By the end of Phase 3 we had come up with this:

Design a project based around "connection/disconnection":

• Disconnection from traditional fibre practices and value of fibre has led to the fast fashion environmental crisis we are in today and loss of traditional sustainable practices.

• Disconnection from culture/history due to displacement, immigration, and cultural genocide has left us culturally depleted and we have lost identities, traditions, stories and elder guidance in practice.

• Disconnection from each other, our communities, and our support networks has led to increased polarization, and decrease in empathy and willingness to understand.

From this we developed the statement:

"Using the arts, how might we weave a deeper connection with ourselves, each other and the environment."

• We will host pop-up sessions through summer of 2023 and into the fall

• Community activated to join the conversation and discuss the project and issues

• Dive into our themes with the community members

• Have community members contribute to the project by making elements for the project

• Community donations of fibre items to reduce material waste

Through fall and winter of 2023 and into spring 2024 we will continue to create the project. we will be stitching leaves and flowers, building tree trunks, stems, and branches. We will build a “village” of houses from the elements we got out of community workshops. Then all of this will be compiled together into a MASSIVE textural and interactive tree with the Village at its roots. Meanwhile we will be documenting community stories, conversations and explorations and compiling this in a digital format on this page. We will be putting it all the digital and written contributions together in an interactive digital quilt that tells the “deeper” story. The physical installation will be connected to the digital installation via a QR code. We will keep open options to keep contributing to the digital quilt even after showcase.

We will showcase all of this from Mar-May 2024.