Celebrating the creativity, innovation and skill of emerging, Canadian craft artists. Coming Up Next is an exhibition of works selected from a diverse variety of approaches, mediums, and regions. With recent graduates from post-secondary programs, and artists that have practiced and studied their craft through mentorship, Coming Up Next is an exciting collection of works in Wood, Ceramics, Glass, Fibre, and Metal, made by artists form Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Participating artists: Adriane Vant Erve, Chen Si, Dalayce Smith, Daniel Labutes, Esther Imm, Gillian Tolliver, Graham Boyd, Jared Last, Leia Guo, Luke Winterhalt, Marcy Friesen, Meng Qiu, Sophia Lengle, Lael Chmelyk.

Jewellery is one of humankinds earliest known expressions of creative endeavour beyond mere survival. How does the ready availability of DIY jewellery kits, and other such products that create widespread accessibility to jewellery making, affect the artists who participate in and advocate for the handmade economy as skilled and trained makers?   

 What happens to the independent maker; to craft and the status of the handmade when a niche skill set such as jewellery making is subject to the generalization and globalisation of the marketplace? Alternately what happens to notions of jewellery when they can be influenced by a surplus of generic materials and processes beyond the traditional ones?  

 This exhibition is a compelling cross-section of interdisciplinary art jewellery practices in the region. These artists each navigate and activate different intersections between artist, educator, entrepreneur, studio jeweller, academic and parent amongst other roles and influences.   

Curated by Kari Woo 

Participating artists:  Sarah Alford, Devon Clark, Jamie Kroeger, Louise Perrone, Lyndsay Rice, and Kari Woo.   

Curated by Shiemara Hogarth.

Audre Lorde once said that “if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”

Eva Birhanu and Simone Elizabeth Saunders define for themselves, in this body of work, permanent manifestations through sculptural and textile practices that reckon with the necessary conversations surrounding race, gender, roots and identity.