Crafting Commons

“This month, you feel compelled to make changes. But don’t rush in. First, take a step back and look to the past to shape your future. Find out about the traditions where you are, the way people who came before navigated the land in winter and worked with the conditions and materials. Those around you will celebrate the old–new beginnings.”

— Kate Fletcher, Fletcher’s Almanac (2024)

Join Public Scholar & Doctoral Candidate Pramila Choudhary (Department of Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies, Concordia University), alongside her collaborators and community partners, for an engaging spotlight event. Crafting Commons brings together makers, researchers, artists, and community members to explore how seasonal rhythms shape material practices and how slowness, care, and constraint can become generative forces in making and imagining shared futures.

Through conversations, artistic interventions, and hands-on making, this event creates a shared space to reflect on the relationships between materials, methods, and meaning. Artists, makers, researchers, and community members are invited to consider how practices shaped by scarcity, abundance, and stewardship continue to influence ways of working across art, craft, research, and everyday life.

See schedule below:

Listening | Panel Discussion

This session brings together practitioners, artists, researchers, and educators, bringing voices from South Asia into shared dialogue with perspectives from the UK and Canada, to explore how traditional knowledge systems inform material practices under environmental constraints and possibilities. Grounded in listening, reflection, and place-based knowledge, the discussion examines how inherited practices continue to shape contemporary approaches to making, sustainability, and care across contexts.

On-site Speakers; moderated by Pramila Choudhary, PhD Candidate and Public Scholar, Concordia University, Canada/India

Rachel McHenry: Sustainability, Decolonization, and Design, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada

Kathleen Vaughan: Research Chair in Art and Education for Sustainable and Just Futures, Concordia University, Canada

Sowparnika Balaswaminathan: Assistant Professor, Religions and Cultures, Concordia University, Canada/India

Anne-Marie Laflamme: Clothing and object designer; Co-Director, atelier b, Tiohtià:ke / Montréal, Canada

Nadia Bunyan: Fashion designer, researcher, community organizer; Co-founder, Growing A.R.C., Canada

Virtual Speakers; moderated by Megha Chauhan — Doctoral Researcher (Textile Craft and Sustainability), Nottingham Trent University (UK)/India

Amruthalakshmi Rajagopalan: Textile designer and researcher (National Institute of Design, NID, India)

Juhi Pandey : Craft and social design specialist (National Institute of Design, NID, India)

Madan Meena: Visual artist and folklore researcher (India)

Pragya Sharma: Doctoral Researcher (History of Design), University of Brighton (UK)/India

Making | Experiential Workshops

Hands-on workshops developed in collaboration with Growing A.R.C. and the Textiles & Materiality Cluster, Milieux Institute, invite participants to engage with seasonal materials through flax breaking and hackling, wool carding and drop-spindle spinning, solar dyeing, repair, and mending.

Workshop Facilitators:

Rebeca Longer-:Latina curriculum designer and educator, Concordia University

Vanessa Randall : Artist and INDI MFA candidate, Concordia University; working across art education, history, and geography

Geneviève Moisan: Textile artist, PhD researcher, and educator; Co-founder of STAIN Lab (Sustainable Tinctorial Art in Nature)

Observing | Artist Showcase

Featuring works by Amélie Brindamour, Aliénor Dufétel, Ioana Tater , Gabrielle Turbide, Fernanda Suárez, Anne Marie, Anindita Chakraborty, Sharmistha Kar, Beth Paggett, Tricia Crivellaro , Béatrice Dubreuil, Alexandra Harrington, Vanessa Mardirossian, Sabina Rak, Megha Chauhan, Pramila Choudhary,  this exhibition offers space for quiet observation. The showcased works translate lived material knowledge into visual and material forms, inviting contemplation as winter begins its slow turn toward spring.

How can you participate? Join us in person, or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting. You can also watch live on YouTube.

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca

Pramila Choudhary

PhD Candidate and Public Scholar, Concordia University, Canada/India | Moderator

Rachel McHenry

Sustainability, Decolonization, and Design, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada

Kathleen Vaughan

Research Chair in Art and Education for Sustainable and Just Futures, Concordia University, Canada

Sowparnika Balaswaminathan

Assistant Professor, Religions and Cultures, Concordia University, Canada/India

Anne-Marie Laflamme

Clothing and object designer; Co-Director, atelier b, Tiohtià:ke / Montréal, Canada

Nadia Bunyan

Fashion designer, researcher, community organizer; Co-founder, Growing A.R.C., Canada

Megha Chauhan 

Doctoral Researcher (Textile Craft and Sustainability), Nottingham Trent University (UK)/India | Moderator

Amruthalakshmi Rajagopalan

Textile designer and researcher (National Institute of Design, NID, India)

Juhi Pandey

Craft and social design specialist (National Institute of Design, NID, India)

Madan Meena

Visual artist and folklore researcher (India)

Pragya Sharma

Doctoral Researcher (History of Design), University of Brighton (UK)/India

Organized by 

Pramila Choudhary is an artist-researcher, educator and Public Scholar at Concordia University. Her work focuses on sustainable textiles, circular practices, and community-led knowledge, bridging material culture, labour, gender, and sustainability across India and Canada through collaborative, craft-based approaches.

Nadia Bunyan is a fashion designer, researcher, and community organizer, and co-founder of the nonprofit Growing A.R.C. She is pursuing a Master’s degree at Concordia University, focusing on sustainable fashion and the integration of food and textile crops in community projects.

Megha Chauhan is a PhD researcher at Nottingham Trent University (UK), exploring intersections of fashion, culture, and community-driven engagement, with a focus on creative outreach, storytelling, and collaborative cultural practices.

Sowparnika Balaswaminathan is an Assistant Professor in Religions & Cultures at Concordia University. Her research spans heritage and museums, art and craft, South Asia, caste, postcoloniality, ethics, aesthetics, labour, and gender and sexuality.

Aliénor Dufetel is a third-year BFA student in Fibres & Material Practices at Concordia University. Her practice explores geomorphology, deep time, and the sublime through fibre sculpture, abstraction, and handwoven textured maps, working at the intersection of environmental sciences and art.

This spotlight event is generously supported by South Asian Studies in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, Growing A.R.C. (non-profit), Projecthandstitch, and the Textiles & Materiality Cluster at the Milieux Institute.