MENDING WAYS

Cultivate Art Commons Artist-Run Centre

May 9th – July 18th, 2026

Curatorial Assistance Faith Brooks

Artists: Emma Allain, Jennifer Anorue & Kateryna Kostelna, Chris Chrysler, Antoinette Karuna, Narmin Kassam, Kellyann Marie, Abby Nowakowski, and Jasper Lyon Wicke.

After a long winter and a hectic early spring, Mending Ways at Cultivate Art Commons grants a moment of respite. This year’s Annual Juried Exhibition brings together the work of nine artists responding to the theme of mending. Mending can be physical and tangible, like darning our warmest socks, or relational and intangible, like sending a letter to an old friend. Mending requires us to be vulnerable, intentional, and embodied. To mend, we must sit with our emotions and experiences. We must show up as we are.

In For Saul, Antoinette Karuna connects interpersonal mending to intergenerational and community mending. In this textile work, Karuna explores her identity in relation to her Tamil and Québécois heritage. Using sewing, rug hooking, punch needles, and appliqué to merge textiles of a variety of textures and colours into one work, Karuna explores methods of healing diasporic grief – the complicated emotional pain caused by displacement and movement. By dedicating this work to her nephew, Saul, Karuna’s work demonstrates the teaching of mending practices to future generations.

https://www.cultivateartcommons.org/mending-ways