An Interactive Arts Installation
During the NAF/CRRF Conference and Shore 2 Shore will be an interactive arts installation where conference attendees can contribute their perspectives, stories, knowledge, and experience through crochet to create one large tapestry reflecting the conference theme of relational wellness: aging and rural health; circular economy and environmental conservation; arts, culture, and sense of place; Indigenous and community research partnerships; and technological and rural change. Relationality will be embedded within the stitches of the tapestry as each thread of knowledge is woven together, each stitch relying on the last to create a whole. The tapestry will highlight how our understanding is incomplete without knowledge from others. The social relations we have between people, groups, and organizations, their values, and different ways of thinking and perceiving are essential to relational wellness where connections in knowledge require open minds, trust, and dialogue.
Our Common Threads is a continuation of a community-engaged art project that started in May 2025 in the rural coastal community of Conche on the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. From Tragedy to Tapestry brought together community members to repurpose a piece of fishing net that killed an orca off the coast of Twillingate, NL into a collaborative crocheted tapestry that now hangs in the community hall. Individuals crocheted their own 8 x 8 cm squares filling in the mesh of the net, creating a mosaic of creativity and sustainability transformed by caring hands and gentle labour. Second-hand wool, and patterns and ornaments on behalf of loved ones who have passed were donated adding an extra layer of sustainability and incorporating people’s empathy, emotions, affect, and identity into a greater tapestry that expresses the ethos of Conche and the people.
