Roots & Threads

Image credit: Tied in Thread, Spadina Museum. Assembled by Deniz Ergun Seker using community contributions.

Where creativity, community and sustainability come together

This winter, Toronto Botanical Garden invites you to become part of Roots & Threads, a collaborative textile art project celebrating sustainability, creative reuse and our connections to people, plants and place.

Presented in partnership with the Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC), Roots & Threads will transform previously loved clothing and fabrics into a collective work of art inspired by the Garden’s flora, fauna, landscape and architecture.

Whether you donate materials, create a textile piece at home or join a workshop, everyone is invited to add their own thread to the story.

How to participate

There are several ways to take part throughout the project:

1. Donate your textiles

Give your pre-loved fabrics a new life.

Starting in September, bring previously loved clothing and fabric to the TBG Visitor Centre. Your donated materials will be sorted and transformed into creative kits for community participants.

What to donate: Clean, previously loved clothing and fabric suitable for cutting, stitching and textile collage.

📍 Drop-off: TBG Visitor Centre
📅 September through October 2026

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2. Pick up a creative kit

Once donated textiles have been sorted, they will be transformed into small creative kits that visitors can take home.

Each kit will provide materials and inspiration to create a textile collage patch inspired by TBG — from plants and wildlife to the Garden’s landscapes and architecture.

You don’t need to be an experienced artist. Just bring your creativity.

Creative kits will be available through the Roots & Threads activities at the Holiday EcoMarket and Weston Family Library

📍 Pick up: You can “check out” a creative kit from the Weston Family Library
📅 November 2026 through February 2027

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3. Create with the artists at the TBG EcoMarket

Join WAAC artists Deniz Ergun Seker, Janet F. Potter and Gerry Withey for free, drop-in textile workshops during TBG’s Holiday EcoMarket.

Come for a few minutes or stay and create. Work on a textile patch for the installation, learn a new technique or pick up a kit to continue at home.

Explore three different approaches to textile art:

• Printmaking on fabric with Gerry
• Lettering and boro mending with Janet
• Fabric manipulation and textile collage with Deniz

📅 November 20 to 22 and December 18 to 20, 2026
📍 Toronto Botanical Garden
🎟️ Free, drop-in workshops at the Weston Family Library

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4. Create at home

Take your creative kit home and work on your textile patch at your own pace throughout the winter. Your finished piece will become part of something much larger — a collaborative artwork made from contributions across the TBG community.

There is no single way to create your patch. Experiment with colour, texture, pattern, stitching, lettering, mending and collage to express your own connection to the Garden.

📅 Throughout the Winter 2026/2027
📍 At your own pace, at your home

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5. Create together at WAAC

Want to work on your patch alongside other participants?

Join the community at the Dignam Gallery, headquarters of the Women’s Art Association of Canada, on select Thursday afternoons in January 2027.

These informal sessions offer an opportunity to work alongside others, share ideas and continue building the collective artwork together.

📍 Dignam Gallery, WAAC
📅 Select Thursday afternoons in January 2027
Details to be announced.

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6. See the finished artwork

As the individual textile patches come together, WAAC artists Deniz, Janet and Gerry will thoughtfully arrange the contributions into one harmonious installation inspired by Toronto Botanical Garden.

The completed Roots & Threads textile artwork will be unveiled at TBG in Spring 2027, coinciding with Earth Month.

Come see how individual contributions — different in colour, texture, story and style — can become something beautiful when woven together.

📍 TBG Visitor Centre
📅 Spring 2027

One garden. Many stories. One shared creation.

Roots & Threads is about more than making art. It is an invitation to rethink what we value, give new life to materials that might otherwise be discarded and celebrate the connections that make a community.

Every donated fabric, every stitch and every creative contribution becomes part of a larger story — one that reflects our shared relationship with nature and with one another.

Add your thread to Roots & Threads.

Roots & Threads is presented by Toronto Botanical Garden in partnership with the Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC).