material disobedience
May 30 - June 20, 2026. Opening reception: Saturday May 30, 6-10 PM.
Théo Bignon, Molly JF Caldwell, Lux Gow-Habrich, & Hea R. Kim. Curated by Madeline Collins.
exhibition | talk | workshop
- Artist-led Workshop: Friday May 29, 4–7pm at Roozamoon Café (398 Queen St E). Free with RSVP.
- Panel Discussion: Saturday May 30, 1–3pm at Harbourfront Studio Theatre (235 Queens Quay W). Free with RSVP.
- Exhibition Opening Reception: Saturday May 30, 6–10pm at The Lost & Found Project Space.
material disobedience is an exhibition of boundary-pushing craft practices that reclaims and revels in what has been minimized as the frivolously feminine, the scandalously queer, or the exotically ornamental. This showcase brings together artists from Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec working in installation art, weaving, embroidery, sculptural ceramics, photography and video. Opening on Saturday May 30th, material disobedience also includes free and accessible grant-supported programming in the form of a panel discussion at Harbourfront Centre’s Studio Theatre (May 30), and a workshop with artist Théo Bignon (May 29).
Rhinestones, beads, crystals, embroidery, textiles, and ceramics have all been variously perceived as symbols of “excessive” cultures or lifestyles, an association that has served to reinforce creative hierarchies and trivialize marginalized identities. By centering these materials in their work, and transforming the stigma of “excess” into creative inspiration, the artists entwine visual and haptic pleasures with critical analyses of labour, gender, sex, and colonialism.
Théo Bignon’s meticulous embroideries use materials associated with flamboyant queer self-expression — shiny pink beads, glittering sequins, false eyelashes — to demonstrate the place-making praxis of queer cruising. Molly JF Caldwell’s tongue-in-cheek pink textiles emphasize the gendered politics of weaving and the finger-pointing spectacle of female celebrities. Meanwhile, Lux Gow-Habrich’s fantastical porcelain hair and makeup tools highlight a relationship between queer femme dressing rituals and diasporic (un)belonging. And Hea R. Kim invites us to imagine a possible ecological future of plastic-encrusted creatures in crystallized ecosystems. The artists’ skillful handling of their materials seduces attendees into an exquisite sensorium that gives way to refusal and radical self-creation.
The exhibition and programming is part of Openwork, an artist-led initiative by TLAF Collective to encourage new voices, diversity, and critical engagement in the field of experimental craft and material-based practice. material disobedience is supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts, Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, and generously sponsored by artverb*.
Programming
Taking place during Pride Month, the exhibition and its free programming — an artist-led workshop, panel discussion, and public reception — is ready to make space for Toronto’s under-represented communities to learn and experiment with the possibilities of craft, and provide much-needed safe space for all to mingle and create.
Embroidery as Making Space: A Hands-on Workshop with Théo Bignon
- Friday May 29, 4-7pm at Roozamoon Café (398 Queen St E). Free with RSVP, limited spots.
Join Montreal-based artist Théo Bignon in an embroidery and embellishment workshop, oriented around the possibilities of queer place-making. Come learn about his beading technique and create your own embellished embroidery. Bignon’s practice of embroidering and beading meaningful locations in queer life to mark the relationship between place and the crafting of queer identity. Participants are encouraged to bring an image of or an object from a place that is important to them and their identity — this could be from spaces of friendship, found family, sexual liberation, emotional release, transition, and many more. Following a short discussion of his work, Bignon will lead participants through the process of sketching, embroidering, and beading a vignette onto a small circle of cloth as a way of reflecting on our everyday, unconscious place-making practices.
The workshop will take place at Roozamoon Café (398 Queen St E, Toronto) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 from 4-7pm. The Lost & Found (located just a few doors down) will be open for an exclusive preview of the exhibition, so you can see Bignon's works in person and get inspired to create your own.
Experimental Craft and Cathartic Possibility: Mending and Tactile Knowledge
A panel discussion with artists Théo Bignon, Molly JF Caldwell, Lux Gow-Habrich & Hea R. Kim, moderated by curator Madeline Collins
- Saturday, May 30, 1-3pm at Harbourfront Centre’s Studio Theatre (235 Queens Quay W). Free with RSVP.
Join us for "Experimental Craft and Cathartic Possibility: Mending, Tactile Knowledge and Futurities" at Harbourfront Centre! This dialogue brings together the artists featured in material disobedience at The Lost & Found Project Space to expand on their experimental craft media and techniques, and engage in conversation about the reparative and cathartic possibilities of contemporary craft.
Artists Théo Bignon, Molly JF Caldwell, Hea R. Kim, Lux Gow-Habrich, and curator Madeline Collins will consider craft as a liberatory tool for addressing social, economic, political and/or cultural harms, while also being deeply embedded in personal histories and self-expressions for queer, femme, and racialized artists. The artists will discuss experimental craft’s ability to challenge traditional hierarchies (in both life and art) and as a means of repairing relations with trivialized or undervalued labour, knowledge, and ways of making.
Bios
Théo Bignon
Théo Bignon (he/him) is a French artist, curator and educator based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, whose practice explores the intersections of desire, ornamentation, and queer existence. His work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Centre Clark and Gallery Blouin Division (Montréal), Villa Noailles (Hyères, France), Bunker Projects (Pittsburgh, PA), Salon LB (Chicago), and Whatiftheworld Gallery (Cape Town, South Africa). Théo is the founder of the Non-Resident Residency, an art residency program in Montréal for artists without permanent residency status, and a co-founder of Abstract Lunch, an artist-run curatorial project focused on experimentation, play, and community engagement. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from Sciences Po Paris.
Molly JF Caldwell
Molly JF Caldwell (she/her) is a Calgary-based artist, writer, and cultural worker whose practice is rooted in autoThéory, textiles, and material-based inquiry. A 2017 graduate of Alberta University of the Arts, she explores Japanese-Canadian identity, feminist craft traditions, and the politics of making through a multidisciplinary approach. Her work examines how textiles operate as both archives and sites of resistance, foregrounding slow-making methodologies and embodied knowledge. Caldwell was named to the 2025 Sobey Art Award longlist and has exhibited and published across the country, with recent projects at The Esker Foundation, The New Gallery, and Neutral Ground.
Lux Gow-Habrich
Lux Gow-Habrich (they/them) is a queer, disabled, multidisciplinary visual artist, facilitator and support worker of mixed, second-generation Chinese and German heritage, practicing between Tkarón:to (Toronto, ON) and Kjipuktuk (Halifax, NS). These intersections and roles are immensely interconnected and play important parts in their practice. They grew up disabled, caring for a disabled parent, in a complex household that held multiple contradictory cosmological and cultural nuances. The nature of care, access, interdependence, rupture and repair, agency, identity have always been at the core of their research. Especially, questions around embodiment and the ways that disability, gender, race and visibility shape our internal and external social realities.
Hea R. Kim
Hea R. Kim (she/her) is a South Korean-born, multidisciplinary artist whose immersive installations explore themes of cultural hybridity, memory, and transformation. Drawing from her Korean heritage, childhood experiences, and diasporic identity, she creates playful yet conceptually rich environments where myth, nostalgia, and pop culture intertwine. Her work often combines fiber and ceramic techniques with mass-produced objects, challenging the boundaries between craft and contemporary art. She has exhibited across Canada and South Korea and continues to develop work that bridges tradition and reinvention through materially layered, emotionally resonant installations.
Madeline Collins, curator
Madeline Collins (she/her) is a contemporary art writer, curator, and artist currently based in Tkarón:to/Toronto, Ontario. As a Black queer scholar, her practices principally explore identity-making and world-building in Black diasporic theory, queer-of-colour imaginaries, and the visioning of “worlds otherwise.” Her publications include the podcast Unboxing the Canon and articles in Journal of Curatorial Studies, Senses & Society, RACAR, and Economía Creativa. Curatorially, she is interested in work that overwhelms, winks, and shocks. She is currently a research assistant at the Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora.
