02 Jul

Community Quilt Workshop in Cambridge, July 6th, 2024

Saturday, July 6 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Join us at the Queen’s Square studio at the Idea Exchange in Cambridge for a Community Quilt Workshop with the Grand River Community Play Project. ⁠

Location: 1 North Square, Cambridge, ON, N1S 2K6
Cost: FREE but please register beforehand.
Registration link: https://ideaexchange.libnet.info/event/10941486

ABOUT THE EVENT
There are no rules for creating a square aside from a final size of 10 x 10 inches. Any approach is welcome (sewing, painting, applique, felting, etc.), and we encourage experimentation and creativity. The most important thing is that each square should tell your story or depict your relationship to the river. Rather than a traditional rectangular quilt, each of your squares will be tied together to create the shape of the river and be displayed with a map of the Grand River watershed identifying where each square came from. We will also display a matching “quilt” of your stories about each square. ⁠

Examples of current
Grand River quilt squares

MORE ABOUT THE GRAND RIVER PROJECT
The Grand River Community Play Project: The Voice of a River is an interdisciplinary piece that will connect the communities and inhabitants that live along the length of the Grand River – a river that starts in the highlands of Dufferin County, travels 310 km, before emptying into Lake Erie at Port Maitland. About a million people live within the watershed, a watershed that passes cities, towns, villages, trees, wild grasses, coyotes, and includes thirty-nine municipalities and two First Nations territories.

The Voice of a River is about community and the meaningful connection to Indigenous leaders and communities along the Grand River. It is an inclusive creative activity involving artists, municipal and Indigenous leaders, scientists, Elders, Community folk, children, NFP organizations, educational institutions – and most importantly the Grand River. This is a project about storytelling – in all the ways stories can be told – in spoken word, in song, in dance, ceremony, in art installation, in silence, through different cultural lenses, and via technology. It is being imagined as an environmental experience – something that will develop and build over time, leading toward a unique presentation in all four seasons, and over many years, passing the experience along to the next generations for them to reimagine, for them to inhabit with their own stories.