Material Voices at the Textile Museum of Canada

Textile
Bas-Relief panel by Hicks for architectural project, currently on display at TMC.

The second museum I decided to visit while in Toronto was the Textile Museum of Canada (TMC).  If you’ve been following this blog for awhile you know I get really exited about seeing textile arts in mainstream museum spaces – so visiting the TMC seemed like a logical way to build on that love.  The TMC is the only museum in Canad that “explores ideas and builds cultural understanding through the universally relevant media of textiles.”  The Museum is also well known for its education and interactive programming.

Unfortunately during my visit they were just in the midst of changing out one of the main exhibit spaces so the amount of content on display was substantially smaller than normal.  The main exhibit that I was able to see was Sheila Hicks: Material Voices.  The exhibition focused on the work of artist Sheila Hicks whose practice ranges from weaving to found object sculptures to large scale architectural installations.

This was a wonderful exhibit that included a wide range of Hick’s work in different mediums.  The exhibition also included a number of audio-visual stations some of which included films focusing on Hick’s practice and others explaining works on display by the exhibition curator.  I found the videos showing Hicks process for some of her large scale installation projects particularly interesting. I also just generally loved her art and her ability to use textiles in so many different ways. The exhibition is open until February 5, 2017 and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in textiles, mixed media art, or installation art.

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