Rhythmic Repair Exhibition

Wildseed Centre / Gallery

Feb 11, 2026 — May 2, 2026

Opening—  6:00 pm — 8:00 pm

Rhythmic Repair is a textile-based group exhibition presented at Wildseed Centre’s Gallery, exploring how slowness is encouraged, memories are stored and stories are conveyed through a range of weaving practices. Through photography and material works, each artist draws on themes surrounding memory and re/connection to engage with patterns as sources of both inspiration and resistance.

This project is supported by Canada Council for the Arts.

Exhibition Opening: February 11, 2026 at 6PM ET

CURATORIAL ESSAY:

Connecting themes within, across and through what feels incomplete in isolation, is an experience that was especially pronounced when photographer Duane Cole joined me in Scarborough a few years ago. During our time in Toronto’s east end, Duane captured portraits of my grandmother to complement a chapter I had written on migration, domestic labour, and expressions of community care ¹. A session that was meant to broadly depict her everyday life, quickly became anchored by her meditative crocheting practice. Together, his photo series and my essay were contributions to a forthcoming anthology edited by Sandy Hudson entitled Black Currents: Imprints of Northern Blackness. 

Much like the patterns of our elders’ oral archives, I similarly interpret the Wildseed Centre as metaphoric tapestry. Programs delivered in service of Black creativity, renovations that have occurred within the space, and the Centre’s connections to global solidarity efforts, each deeply inform one another. Drawing on curatorial approaches in order to deepen community partnerships that strengthen networks of care, all just makes sense. In many ways, the sum of each part creates a mosaic anchored by shared goals of enabling comfort, connection and warmth. Relatedly, material and textile artforms extend those experiences in a literal way.

Rhythmic Repair is a textile-based group exhibition presented at Wildseed Centre’s Gallery, exploring the ways in which slowness is encouraged, memories are stored and stories are conveyed through a range of weaving practices. Initially, the exhibit was inspired by my grandmother’s hand-crafted slippers, which is why outtakes from the above noted series are featured in the show. Similarly, art builds that strengthen advocacy efforts across Toronto, and the range of textile mediums that bring diverse communities together were each great sources of provocation.

Rhythmic Repair challenges the undervaluation of craft. It pays homage to the people who practice gendered creative labour. Importantly, the exhibition invites rehearsals of slow cadence as a form of return to self and community. Together, each work invites the audience to ask yourselves: In your life, what do you feel most connected to at this moment? What patterns inspire you?

In her book Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre & Textiles ², Sharbreon Plummer insists that “quilts are a soft place for hard topics.” So, too, are the clothes we choose to wear or create. As it relates to sewing, particularly for trans, non-binary and gender expansive people, learning how to style, design, and fabricate are assertions of agency. To borrow from Diseiye Thompson’s statement on Find Your Way Back (2016), garments like the corset and skirt featured in the exhibition are portals “between past and future selves.” As a seamstress and mentor, Thompson’s work invites insight into the ballroom scene and inspires others developing their design practice, all while offering a point of reconnection with her Nigerian heritage.

Initially trained as a theatre performer, Simone Elizabeth Saunders ushered in a new way of storytelling, taking up another disciplinary practice during her artistic career. Rather than connecting through speech and movement, Saunders learned a visual and textural language. Through works like (Be)Longing Series (2024), Simone uses thread as a channel for honouring afrofuturist femmehood and Jamaican sensibility.

Cole, Thompson and Saunders’ works each convey the ways relationships to self and to community, informing how stories are threaded into independent art practices. On the other hand, Hands off Venezuela (2026) is the direct result of collective creative labour – a textile banner crafted by more than thirty Latin and Caribbean neighbours from within and beyond Eglinton West, Toronto. Protest banners are critical aspects of most movements for social change. They are aesthetic translations of demands by the people, charting paths toward futurities rooted in justice. In the wake of resource theft, military violence, and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro, efforts by Venezuela Solidarity Coalition remind us to disrupt patterns of extraction with a cadence of resistance.

Presented through photography and material works, Rhythmic Repair is a group exhibition exploring themes of memory, slowness and re/connection through textiles. The artists and I invite you to spend time with the works and in the Gallery. We’ve incorporated sites of inquiry, added seating, and even brought out an extra set of dominos for you and your kin. In our shared casita ³, we are creating a tapestry anchored by comfort and connection.

Curatorial Essay by Jessica Kirk

1. Kirk, Jessica. “Threads: on Labour, Movement and Care.” In Black Currents: Imprints of Northern Blackness, edited by Sandy Hudson. Penguin Random House Canada, forthcoming.
2. Plummer, Sharbreon. Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre & Textiles. Cambridge: Common Threads Press, 2022.
3. Dominguez, Daniela. 2025. “La Casita Bad Bunny: Diseño E Historia.” Architectural Digest. December 5, 2025. https://www.admagazine.com/articulos/la-casita-bad-bunny-diseno-e-historia.

ARTIST BIOS:

Diséiye Thompson (she/her) is a costume designer and stylist based in Toronto and classically trained at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Design. Diséiye draws design inspiration from fashion history, her Nigerian heritage, and the intersecting communities to which she belongs. Thompson’s design skills and techniques are ever-evolving, growing increasingly refined during her apprenticeship with Greta Constantine, while designing at Lea-ann Belter Bridal, and through her leadership on productions in theatre, music videos, live performances and award-winning films. Her costumes have been featured in Canadian Opera Company’s Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White, as well as on artists Aiza and DVSN.

Simone Elizabeth Saunders (she/her) is an award-winning Canadian textile artist whose punch-needle works center Black womanhood and her Jamaican heritage. Holding two BFAs, Simone has received numerous honors, including a 2023 Calgary Black Chambers Achievement Award. Most recently, her works have been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Alberta (AB), Contemporary Calgary (AB), Textile Museum of Canada (ON, Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem (NY), SCOPE and LOOP Miami (FL), ExpoChicago (IL), and the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, England.

Venezuela Solidarity Coalition was born out of the Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network (LACSN). The Coalition aims to unite and organize the Latin American and Caribbean diaspora against imperialist exploitation, and rejects the centuries-long theft of resources and labour for the benefit and spoils enjoyed by the global North. They stand in solidarity with their siblings of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The Coalition also stands for the sovereignty of ancestral lands.

Duane Cole (he/him) was born and raised in Toronto, and took up photography when he realized he couldn’t draw very well. He has a profound interest in stylistic simplicity and pursuing honest connections with his subjects – both of which are key to the portraits he creates. Duane has experience shooting on location and in a studio, and his photography explores the intersection of sports, race, art, gender and pop culture. Cole has worked with and been published by the likes of Bell Media, Canadian Business, Canadian Stage, CBC, The Globe and Mail, The Local, Macleans, The National Film Board of Canada, Popular Mechanics, Report on Business, Sportsnet, Toronto Life, the University of Toronto, The Washington Post, The Walrus and West End Phoenix.

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