Exhibition Dates and Location
Interwoven, a group exhibition by Jacob Le Gallais, Jacky Lo, and Nancy Long is on display June 13th - July 23rd, 2025 in our Main Hall Gallery located at the Aldergrove Kinsmen Community Center (26770 29th Ave, Aldergrove, BC V4W 3B8). Our Main Hall Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00am-4:00pm. Check our Social Media for Main Hall closures, here.
Join us June 28th from 12:00pm - 2:00pm for the Interwoven Artist Talk and Reception! For more information, click here.
Exhibition Statement
The exhibition invites visitors to contemplate the complex interconnections and the continuous evolution of relationships existing within the production of silk, fostering a deeper appreciation for the intricate tapestry of human history, creativity and the creatures we’ve harnessed for human benefit. The exhibition is arranged to guide visitors through a chronological and thematic journey. Beginning with Jacob’s textile collages, visitors encounter intimate and speculative conversations between silk moths, setting the stage for reflection on human intervention and technological evolution. Though closely related, the wild silk moth (Bombyx mandarina) and the domestic silk moth (Bombyx mori) have long been physically and symbolically divided through processes of human interference, colonial expansion, and capitalist enterprise. Brown and slender, the wild silk moth is native to the temperate and subtropical forests of East Asia. Its silk-producing larvae (caterpillars) feed almost exclusively on the leaves of the white mulberry tree (Morus alba). In contrast, centuries of selective breeding have rendered the domestic silk moth entirely dependent on human care for reproduction and survival. Once able to fly and marked with natural colouration, the domestic moth has lost both attributes in service of silk production.
A Thread Between proposes a poetic exchange between a wild and a domestic silk moth rendered as a triptych textile collage contemplating loss, separation, and material desire. This imagined conversation was created in partnership with generative AI, both as a critique and exploration of the freedoms and constraints of assistive technologies in contemporary craft practices. In doing so, it positions AI as a conceptual descendant of historic textile innovations such as the Jacquard loom.
Moving to the installation, Industrial Shadows Loom Large, the focus shifts to the historical impact of the Jacquard loom and the broader socio-economic consequences of industrialization. Invented in 1804, the Jacquard loom revolutionized the textile industry. This installation is made up of 52 hand-cut, punched and stringed cards, according to the specifications from the 1888 manual, The Jacquard Machine. Detailed images of various components of sericulture and weaving are featured on each card, such as cocoons, silk threads, a shuttle, silkworms, silk moths, spindles, machinery and other elements of traditional methods of weaving by artisans. By juxtaposing hand-drawn images with digitized illustrations from The Jacquard Machine manual onto the hand-crafted cards, the installation asks viewers to contemplate the fraught relationship between progress of industry and loss of the value of the artisan. Since the cards were hole-punched for the loom to register and create specific patterns, so are they here, producing what the Jacquard loom would weave into an image of the artisan’s hands, seen in its template format on graph paper.
Next, Jacky's works draw connections between ancient trade routes and contemporary cultural intersections, providing a global and personal perspective on the lasting influence of silk. The works, Warping Over, Weft Through, and Sī Rue explore the intercultural impact documented through layering (paper, drawings and embroideries) contemporary and historical maps of silk trade routes. Weft Through re-contextualizes the routes into the form of the moth, where it all began. The work Sī Rue, outlines the historic land route of the Silk Road in tandem with the route the artist’s parents took to settle in Vancouver, Canada. Jacky’s work brings forth issues of globalization and countless cross connections of cultures and identities. Finally, visitors will have the opportunity to share their stories and thoughts at the Loss station. Just as the moth and artisans have their stories of loss, the two guided questions, “What have you lost over time?” and “What do you miss?” ask the audience to share and reflect on parallel thoughts.
Share Your Own Experience and Interact with the Show
As part of this exhibition exploring the layered history of silk, we invite you to reflect on your own experiences of change, memory, and connection. By answering the questions “What have you lost over time?” and “What do you miss?”, you are contributing to a collective reflection on the threads that shape our personal and shared histories. Your responses will become part of an evolving archive, helping us deepen our understanding of how stories of loss and longing resonate across time, materials, and cultures. Thank you for sharing with us.
Artist Biographies
Jacob Le Gallais: Jacob Le Gallais is a visual artist, researcher, and educator based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. Working at the intersection of collage and craft practices, his work incorporates mixed-media collage, paper and textiles, and has been shown in Montreal, Ontario and Blönduós, Northwest Iceland. His studio-based art and research practice examines notions of the human-animal relationship, urban wildlife, the Anthropocene, and the urban landscape as shared habitat for human and non-human-animal lives. Further, his work seeks to foster communities of collaborative engagement, collective teaching, and understanding the multifaceted-practices of arts-based learning. Incorporating public pedagogy, community art teaching practices and art-making workshops, Jacob’s work and philosophy particularly values collaborative, participatory, and performative making, and he has taught both public workshops and undergraduate university courses focussed on community art education. Jacob is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Art Education at Concordia University, as well as a professor in the department of Art History at Dawson College in Montreal.
Jacky Lo: Jacky Lo is an artist, researcher, and educator of Chinese ancestry from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples known as Vancouver. In his practice, he examines themes surrounding social connections, memories, and identities. Jacky has a BFA from Simon Fraser University and a Master’s of Art Education from Concordia University. His research interest explores the materiality of silk in art creation, production, and history and how it can inform the past, present, and a reimagined future. His current projects have been navigating his Canadian and Chinese identity, reconnecting lost narratives of his great-grandmother. He has worked in education and exhibition management for galleries and museums in Vancouver and Hong Kong. He has exhibited in Canada, China, and Iceland.
Nancy Long: Nancy Long is an artist and arts educator based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Art Education at Concordia University. She has taught visual arts and media at the secondary level for over 20 years, and pre-service art education students for the past five years at Concordia. Nancy’s doctoral research focuses on high school art students and teachers developing their skills in tolerance for ambiguity, and their re-evaluation of what is the ‘correct’ outcome in art class. Her artistic practice includes installation, painting, drawing and animation, and examines a variety of topics focusing on relationships between nostalgia, memory, and our senses. She has participated in group exhibitions and conferences in Europe, Canada and the United States.