STITCHES Featured on Ming Pao Toronto

TORONTO, December 31, 2011 - The Hong Kong-based Chinese Newspaper in Toronto Ming Pao featured the STITCHES: Suzhou Fast Foward with exclusive an interview with Ms. Zhou Xueqing, the artist behind the exhibition's seven exquisite Suzhou Embroidery pieces.

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Media Release (November 1, 2011)

Toronto's WORKshop Showcases Suzhou Embroidery and Innovative Responses

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TORONTO, October 31, 2011 - The Toronto experimental design centre and gallery, WORKshop, launched its newly renovated space with the exhibition STITCHES: Suzhou Fast Forward. The show features seven pieces of hand-crafted Suzhou embroidery from China and six contemporary works by invited architects, artists, and designers.

The seven hand-crafted embroidery pieces are from the Zhou XueQing Embroidery Art Center in Guangdong, China. Dexterously stitched in fine silk threads, these exquisite pictures represent an array of subject matter including flowers, birds, and landscapes, continuing Suzhou’s 2000-year history of embroidering illusionistic scenes. Believing that this ancient craft could be the springboard for experimentation and expressions of what embroidery might be in the 21st century, WORKshop invited a small group of architects, artists, and designers to create original works. Their responses employ new technologies, processes, and materials, resulting in objects that range from purely decorative to highly functional.

The contemporary pieces take many forms. IMBLANKY by the University of Toronto’s RAD Lab is a motion-sensored taffeta blanket which detects and records movements. STITCHES: Interstices by Williamson Chong Architects is composed of 2-D and 3-D prints and a holographic projection, exploring the interplay of spatial dimensions from points to volumes. Cloud Brocade by Philip Beesley Architect is a geo-textile installation that captures tiny particles surrounding it, while Circuit Stitching by Hacklab’s Eric Boyd grafts circuitry onto embroidery. Two piece of high-tech machine-embroidery counter the traditional, laborious Suzhou process: Street of Heaven by artists Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak employs satellite photography in the representation of Toronto’s Yonge Street while Moraine by architects Rhett Russo and Katrin Mueller-Russo generates a highly abstract, glacial-like landscape.

STITCHES: Suzhou Fast Forward is open to the public 12 to 6pm Tuesday through Saturday and continues through February 18, 2012.

WORKshop is an experimental design centre and gallery located on the concourse level of 80 Bloor Street West in Yorkville, Toronto's luxury shopping district. Directed by Larry Wayne Richards, former Dean of the University of Toronto's John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, the centre was launched in 2010. WORKshop furthers the visionary work of Hong Kong-based Kin Yeung whose approach establishes reciprocity between design traditions and excellence spawned in China over many centuries and today's contemporary urban life styles in the East and West.

High resolution photos available upon request