Intentional Remediations
Intentional remediations is a multi-phase research creation project involving oral testimony, sound wave visualizations, digitally embroidered text, and textile art.
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Developed in the Open Design Collaboratory (ODC) lab at the Institute of Communication, Culture Information and Technology, University of Toronto Mississauga in spring of 2025. The Intentional Remediations prototype is a digitally embroidered work depicting visually reproduced sound waves from audio recordings, The recordings captured conversations of a group of women artists who meet monthly to ruminate on their work, their processes of making, and the supportive group dialogue they seek from each other. The pilot project enabled experimentation with various software for both the soundwave visualizations and the capabilities of the digital embroidery machine. The resulting prototype is a textile piece of the actual soundwaves of the recorded audio tapes - the voices of the women embroidered onto fabric. A sheer overlay draws attention to salient comments and insights that shed light on the making process, the looking process, and the shared perspectives of this unique community of women artists .
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Research, creation, and feminist perspectives
Intentional Remediations provides the conceptual, intellectual and creative space to experiment with storytelling and explore the ways in which the stories of others are surfaced (through academic research) and shared through creative representation.
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Research questions:
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What are the experiences (challenges, liberations, perceptions, reflections, and practices) of older women artists, particularly visual artists, who continue to engage in making work?
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How have digitally assisted processes affected their thinking (conceptualizing) and making processes and creative practices over the years? How do they impact their current practices?
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How can a critical fabulation* approach to creating alternative platforms for presentation support the women’s narratives and disrupt invisibility?
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* Critical fabulations is an approach to telling stories through intentional design and craft decisions that open possibilities for alternative perspectives, and for “alternative histories” including those that have been rendered invisible (Daniela Rosner 2020, p. 101). Critical fabulations illuminates relationships between designed forms, the bodies that interact with and/or impact the forms thereby affecting design decisions, and the idiosyncrasies of those relationships that may “upend the invisibility of otherwise hidden craftwork.” (p.102). Rosner says that “craftwork is often a meaningful source [and site] of knowledge production” (p.102).
​​Rosner, D. (2020) Critical Fabulations. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
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Pulling Threads
Pulling Threads: Conversations about processes, practices, aging, and visibility by senior women artists, expands on an earlier pilot project within the ODC. Pulling Threads involves collecting testimonies from a broad range of women who have been artists for more than thirty years as they discuss their practices in relation to their position as senior artists and as women. The project aims to examine both the commonalities and the uniqueness of their experiences and perceptions as well as develop an archive of stories of Canadian senior women artists. The project will also explore a presentation of the stories and research findings that is rooted in both feminism and alternative forms of art making. The research will give voice to artists that are often unheard and invisible and contribute to the field of women’s history within the visual arts. The project is multi-layered and will also examine intersecting translations between analogue and digital making.
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The stories told are part of individual and collective histories. The stitiches and threads make these stories concrete, visible and archivable. The stitchery and textile art projects challenge how we view the dissemination of research and our sharing the insights of inquiry.
​The theoretical framework that underlines the project emerges from the intersections between feminist art history in relation to the increased invisibility of women artists as they age and the feminist cooptation of stitching (such as embroidery) as both political in practice and as platform.
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The project outputs will include both a text-based essay as well as a creative textile work that corresponds to, and virtually connects to, excerpts from the recorded conversations and testimonies of the women housed on the project website. The remediation of voices to soundwaves and soundwaves to textile art, provides time and space to reflect on the design decisions considering the stories being told and their becoming visible.
Telling Your Story
​Looking for senior women artists (over 60) interested in talking about their art practice and contributing to a repository of women’s stories.
You are invited to participate in a study titled Pulling Threads: Conversations about processes, practices, aging, and visibility by senior women artists conducted by Dr. Tracey Bowen, in collaboration with Dr. Kate Maddalena, and Dr. Samar Sabie of the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. The study is examining the ways in which women (over 60) who have identified as artists for more than thirty years, view their practice during their senior years. The primary research questions ask:
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What are the experiences (challenges, liberations, perceptions, reflections, and practices) of older women artists, particularly visual artists, who continue to engage in making work?
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How have digitally assisted processes affected their thinking (conceptualizing) and making processes and creative practices over the years? How do they impact their current practices?
The project also aims to create an archive of stories of Canadian senior women artists, analyze the perceptions of these artists, and explore a presentation of the stories and research findings as both a narrative text and a creative textile piece. Findings of the research will give voice to artists that are often unheard and invisible and contribute to the field of women’s history within the visual arts.
Participation is completely voluntary and involves a one-on-one zoom interview/conversation for approximately 45 minutes to 1-hour via zoom. Interviews will be scheduled starting October 2025. During the zoom interview, you will be asked to share your thoughts and opinions regarding your practice in relation to your position as a senior artist and as a woman.
To find out more about participating, contact Tracey Bowen, tracey.bowen@utoronto.ca.
The Pulling Threads study has been reviewed and received ethics clearance through a University of Toronto Research Ethics Committee. If you have questions for the Committee, please contact the Office of Research Ethics, (416) 978-5585 or ethics.review@utoronto.ca .
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Findings of the research may be posted to this website at a future date.