Description:

Rebekah Walker (she/her) is an artist and art historian currently in her third year of Art  History at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). Her work focuses on craft theory  and discourse, exploring them as contemporary forms of political action and radical care.  Many of her projects combine textile art practice with making-based research, where  both the art and the subject inform and shape each other. 

Ultimately, Rebekah aspires to pursue a career in Canadian decorative arts and textile  curation. Through her work, she aims to dissect the complexities of craft as a gendered,  socialist, and material art form. She is particularly interested in exploring the connections  between craft, community, and private life.

The object of inquiry explored over the course of this project is the Komebukuro, also  known as the Japanese Rice bag, decorated with the Sashiko stitch method. Instead of  taking the traditional approach, I decided to take on the contemporary ideas about  Sashiko’s sustainable and mending qualities. One mode of interpretation takes the form of  Mottanai, a Japanese word that means “to waste nothing.” This concept prioritizes the  reuse and mending of materials, as well as the use of every piece of material in the creation  of a garment. It is an ancient tradition that has seen a revitalization in the past few decades  as climate change becomes a prevalent issue in the everyday lives of people around the  world.

Read Rebekah’s full paper, Investigating Sustainability Through Japanese Textile Art Practices, the first two pages seen below, by clicking here to download.