textiles as resistance: contemporary textiles from the atlantic region

Acadia University Art Gallery

June 26 – November 4, 2026

Curated by Dr Laurie Dalton

Artists: Sonja Boon, Alexandrya Eaton, Murray Gibson, Hannah Genosko & Sarah Mosher, Pam Hall, Antoinette Karuna, Alissa Kloet, Chloe Lundrigan, Michelle MacKinnon, Shawn O’Hagan, Allyson Rousseau, Daniel Rumbolt, Jennifer Lee Wiebe.

This group exhibition presents the work of 13 contemporary textile artists from the Atlantic region. Historically associated with utilitarian objects and works created by women as an act of domestic labour, textile based works have too often been placed on the margins of art history. This exhibition explores the ways in which textile as object is being explored in three ways: through installations that push the nature of textile as medium, through durational work that explore the nature of textiles, the body and acts of labour, and through textiles as form to explore complex personal and social histories.

Artist Statement

Living Area, Vincents Way was created in the aftermath of my father’s sudden death in response to the enormous grief that I felt. 

An immigrant from Malaysia born to Tamil Sri Lankan parents, my father was a domestic person. His home on Vincents Way in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, was a testament to his hard-earned, late-arrived financial security (an immigrant priority). It was also the backdrop to a vibrant and comforting domestic life and to his important relationships: as father, partner, grandfather, and friend. When he died, this family life on Vincents Way ended. 

In the aftermath of his death, as an artist, it felt right to me to contemplate scenes of this life–– meals shared, tea drank, kitchen stools, TV time. I drew these rituals using cold-water dyes and water-based resists, a nod to the Malaysian batik that my father grew up around. For the backdrop, I screenprinted his handwriting from a birthday card that he had given me on my fortieth birthday. In it he wrote: Wish you a long, happy & productive life. Love, Dad. I used sari tassels, a reference to our South Asian culture, to complete the work, and let a strand fall to the floor. This felt right, both compositionally and because the story of our relationship continues for me, despite his death.