2023 World of Threads Festival in Toronto, Canada
Deborah Kruger Represents Mexico
The World of Threads Festival, curated by Dawne Rudman and Gareth Bate, opens October 12, 2023 and runs through December 17, 2023 at the Queen Elizabeth Park Community & Cultural Center in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, a suburb of Toronto.
This well anticipated Festival features 426 artwork by 115 artists from 15 different countries. Themed shows included in this year’s Festival are: Amorphous, CatWalk III, Forever Covid, Wings and numerous solo shows and installations.
Originally starting as a single exhibition in 1994, in 1998 The World of Threads expanded to become a full festival. In 2009 they emerged as an international festival, inviting submissions from around the world. 2023 Festival artists come from Canada, England, Finland, France, Hungary, India, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Uruguay, USA, US Virgin Islands, and Wales.
Festival curators Gareth Bate and Dawne Rudman don’t have predetermined curatorial ideas or impose concepts on the artists. The exhibitions develop entirely out of the submissions received. In this way, the curators employ synchronistic curating and respond to the most contemporary fiber and identify materials and themes that organically emerge from the submission.
“In our current age where tech companies would like to replace artists with automated AI generated imagery, making art using fibre and textile methods becomes a radical gesture. It’s an affirmation of human making and creativity.”
– World of Threads Festival
Deborah Kruger’s abstract environmental mural, Devotional, will be exhibited in the major group exhibition, Amorphous, on the theme of abstracted natural elements. Devotional is a large mural piece created in 6 vertical sections with long primarily white tail feathers punctuated with stripes and partial stripes that echo the patterns seen in ikat weaving.
Devotional will be exhibited in the major group exhibition
While Christian Devotionals are books dedicated to bringing the reader closer to a spiritual life, this Devotional is dedicated to bringing viewers closer to a life dedicated to the love and protection of our fragile planet and especially its vulnerable birds. Feathers used in this piece are made from recycled plastic, hand screen-printed with images of endangered birds and overprinted with text in Mexican indigenous languages like Yakme, Zoque and Cho’lol and excerpts of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring translated into Spanish.
Deborah Kruger will be attending the opening festivities at the
World of Threads Festival on Saturday, October 14, 2023.
Resources
Deborah Kruger Exhibitions: https://deborahkruger.com/2023-world-of-threads/
World of Threads Website: https://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/
World of Threads Instagram: @worldofthreads
World of Threads 2023 Online Festival Brochure: https://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/pdfs/Brochure-2023-72dpi-smaller-World-of-Threads-Festival.pdf
Deborah Kruger Website: https://deborahkruger.com/
Deborah Kruger Instagram: @deborahkrugerstudios