About the workshop

This workshop explores creating cloth bags as collective storytelling. The workshop delves into
the movement of story through the application of stitching techniques. Participants will stitch
cotton bags with decorative motifs interpreting experiences of geography and memory.

Inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s essay on the “Carrier Bag”, the workshop replicates the invention and necessity of care offering a way for individuals to metaphorically hold one another together through story. Shawn will demonstrate and teach stitching techniques through the making of a small zippered cotton bag. Participants will receive a sewing kit with materials to stitch their own carrying bag. The stitching techniques can then be used by participants to appliqué or embroider basic motifs or images of one’s own expression onto the bag. The collective making of the bags opens space to consider how we carry information, family history, assumptions, visions, and how simple tools impact our lives in the moment and more broadly, into the future as the skills are shared with one another and intergenerationally.

About the Artist

Shawn Grey is a visual artist whose practice is rooted in connection and transformation. Combining elements of cloth, video, and narrative, her work documents the everyday as a method to locate overlooked stories that carry and share collective knowledge. Her 2022 MFA thesis project, "When Nobody Was Here," at York University, documented the collaborative making of a 45-foot cloth banner that served to articulate the meaning of personal presence and relationship in relationship to self, others, and local histories. Shawn's video montage, "Occupied Acknowledgements," was screened at Toronto’s 2019 Nuit Blanche and her work is recognized by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. Shawn is 3rd generation British/Hungarian descent, born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, living and working in Toronto, Ontario on territories covered by Treaty 13.