The Sow to Sew Project in partnership with the Flax Fibre to Fabric Project at NSCAD University are pleased to host the Sow to Sew Summer 2025 Artist Residency focused on flax and linen this June. The three artists that were selected for the residency are: Charlotte Little, Maggie Sigrid Wilde and Sonia Chow.
The artists are currently based in NSCAD’s Textiles/Fashion Department, in-residence from June 2-30, exploring the material qualities of flax fibre and its by-products through their respective proposed projects.
Nova Scotia is home to a growing number of craftspeople interested in exploring functional applications for locally grown fibre flax. This thematic residency at NSCAD aims to foster connections between fibre producers and makers, by providing a site for studio-based making to creatively explore the potential of this material from the ground up.
The residency invites makers to investigate the material qualities of flax fibre and its by-products to promote sustainable textile production and circular making. Working with locally grown flax processed at TapRoot Fibre Lab in the Annapolis Valley, the selected artists are developing materials and creating works that relate to both the body and the built environment.
The outcomes from their residency will be presented in a group exhibition at the Anna Leonowens Gallery this September 2025.
Meet the Artists-in-Residents
On Monday, June 23, from 12-2 PM drop into Studio S304 in the Fashion Studios (Seeds Building) on the Fountain Campus to meet the artists and learn about their work-in-progress!
About the Artists
Charlotte Little is a textile artist and researcher investigating fashion ecologies and localized textile production in Canada. She holds a BFA in Textiles from Concordia University (2022) and an MA in Fashion from Toronto Metropolitan University (2025) and has worked professionally in the textile industry.
Based in Halifax and Toronto, her work blends academic research and artistic practice, focusing on radical sustainability, speculative textile design, and place-based knowledge. Future goals for her practice include hyperlocal investigations and interdisciplinary collaborations with sustainability science. Charlotte has exhibited publicly at venues including the Royal Ontario Museum, The Image Centre, and Design TO Festival. She has held a previous Artist-in-Residence position at the Icelandic Textile Centre.
For this residency, Charlotte is utilizing weaving-to-form and traditional Nova Scotian weaving patterns to create garments and textiles that act as artifacts from an unknown future. Drawing on speculative design, Charlotte is investigating flax as both a future-making material and a salient actor in Nova Scotia’s historical textile ecologies.
Website: https://charlottelittle.cargo.site/
Maggie Sigrid Wilde is an interdisciplinary settler artist, educator, and boatbuilder based in Nova Scotia’s South Shore. Sigrid received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with dual major in First Peoples Studies and Art Education from Concordia University.
Their art practice revolves around intergenerational process-based fibre arts, land- and place-engaged creation and relational art. Sigrid has generational ties to the South Shore of Nova Scotia and subsequent crafts from the area. Sigrid believes art is a vessel for community building, education, connection, experimentation, and healing by prioritizing togetherness.
Sigrid’s residency project engages with flax through process-based ropemaking and tradition rigging. Sigrid is researching the fibre and its local material knowledge in maritime culture as they transform it into functional cordage.
Sonia Chow is a Halifax-based interdisciplinary designer, artist and educator whose practice blurs the imaginary boundaries between art, craft and design. A design career of over 25 years had her based in Toronto, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts for Graphic Design in 2011 for work spanning branding and identity, publication, packaging and interior graphics. Carving a 4-tonne ice sculpture at Icehotel Sweden compelled her return to school to concentrate on making art. She was Artist-in-Residence at Centre for Craft Nova Scotia’s wood studio (2022-23) and at the Textile Museum of Canada (2024).
As part of this residency, Sonia is using material interventions to transform the undervalued by-products of flax-to-fibre processing, and is exploring the tactile and aesthetic properties of these new composite textiles to create unexpected objects through felting and papermaking processes.
Website: https://www.chowpourian.com/
About the Sow to Sew Project
The Sow to Sew Project is a three-year initiative exploring sustainable fashion, textiles and interdisciplinary craft practices at NSCAD University and is made possible by a generous donation from the Hilary & Galen Weston Foundation. The project provides bursaries and professional development opportunities to students, presents the Sow to Sew Speakers’ Series, hosts an artist-in-residence program, supports capacity building in NSCAD’s Textiles/Fashion Department and will conclude with a public Symposium in Fall 2026.
About the Flax Fibre to Fabric Project
Flax Fibre to Fabric is a four-year research project funded through NSERC/SSHRC that supports the development of a local fibre flax industry in Atlantic Canada through trans-disciplinary and community-based research, collaboration, and engagement. The Flax Fibre to Fabric Project aims to define critical methods, processes and infrastructure to prepare Atlantic Canadian communities to adapt to the effects of climate change by connecting farmers, fibre mills, craftspeople, and consumers to promote the growth of sustainable textile supply chains.
Questions: For any questions about the residency, please contact Valérie Frappier, Sow to Sew Project Coordinator, at: vfrappier@nscad.ca
