Sylvia Lee’s window installation “Lantern” at Keilhauer’s Toronto showroom offers a meditation on light, texture, and cultural memory. As executive director of The Goodman Studio for almost two decades, Lee has developed a distinctive approach to glasswork that merges technical precision with profound material understanding. Her latest pieces depart from the studio’s typical forms, featuring hand-blown shapes inspired by traditional Asian lanterns that seem to float within the space.

Through these works, Lee explores the transformative potential of glasswork beyond pure function or decoration. Her approach to sandblasting creates patterns that mimic intricate weaving and latticework, but the real magic emerges as light moves through the pieces throughout the day. This interplay of transparency and texture speaks to how cultural traditions can be both preserved and reinvented through contemporary craft. In Lee’s hands, glass becomes more than just a material to be shaped it becomes a medium for capturing and transforming light itself, creating spaces that shift and breathe with the passing hours.

Roda Medhat’s extensive presence at this year’s festival demonstrates the depth of his investigation into Kurdish textile traditions. His “Marital Rug” at REVIVE transforms traditional weaving patterns into sophisticated LED sculptures that maintain the characteristic drape and movement of textiles while introducing luminous new possibilities. The piece reveals its full complexity after dark, when intricate patterns emerge through carefully programmed lighting sequences.

In The Shape I’m In at All Ours Studio, Medhat expands this exploration through additional works from his neon rug series. The pieces integrate advanced lighting technology with careful study of traditional Kurdish weaving patterns and techniques. Through this innovative translation of textile traditions into contemporary materials, Medhat creates works that function both as spectacular art objects and as vehicles for cultural preservation and evolution.

Catherine Chan’s exhibition “Fractures and Futures” at Collision Gallery bridges scientific precision with artistic exploration. Drawing from her extensive background in soil science and biogeography, Chan creates installations that collapse the distance between geological and human timescales. Her work with kintsugi techniques transforms found rocks and natural materials into complex metaphors for preservation and repair, while her photographic documentation captures fleeting moments in ongoing natural processes.

The exhibition demonstrates Chan’s sophisticated understanding of material properties and natural systems. Her installations invite viewers to consider how fracture and repair can generate new meanings, particularly in relationship to environmental change. Each piece exists simultaneously in multiple temporal frameworks, from the immediate present of visitor interaction to the deep time of geological formation, creating a layered meditation on human relationships with the natural world.

Mal Yu presents two distinct bodies of work at this year’s festival that showcase innovative material approaches. The “rondo rug” featured in Surface Impressions at Umbra’s concept store reimagines the intrecciato weave technique through a bold circular pattern. Created with the company’s new recycled leather material, the double-sided design features contrasting colorways that allow users to transform spaces through simple interaction.

Simultaneously, Yu’s “Lacework” installation at Collision Gallery translates intimate decorative forms into architectural scale. The work subverts traditional associations of lace doilies through industrial materials and exaggerated proportions. This manipulation of scale and material speaks to broader themes of gender and cultural identity, while demonstrating Yu’s commitment to finding unexpected synergies between form and process.

Dennis Lin’s Open Studio exhibition offers an intimate look into the Toronto artist’s process of preserving and transforming cultural memory. Working from his workspace on Milky Way, Lin presents a range of completed pieces and works in progress that emerged from his journey back to Taiwan and recovery from a devastating house fire. The exhibition centers around his masterful manipulation of 8,000 kilograms of factory seconds, salvaged from his grandfather’s paper factory in Taiwan.

These materials, once destined for landfill, become the foundation for suspended sculptures and relief works that blur the line between preservation and transformation. Lin incorporates additional elements like incense and charred remnants from the fire, creating multilayered pieces that speak to both loss and renewal. Throughout the space, viewers encounter works that demonstrate his sophisticated approach to conservation techniques while grappling with deeper questions of cultural belonging and the weight of inheritance. The exhibition reveals how personal history can be both burden and catalyst, driving artistic innovation through the urgent need to preserve what might otherwise be lost.

Ji Hee Kim’s contribution to Harbourfront Centre’s REVIVE exhibition demonstrates how architectural precision can transform traditional Korean textile techniques. Her piece “Unfolded II” manipulates linen and cotton at an ambitious scale, nearly 1200mm x 1600mm, creating abstract architectural landscapes through the traditional Bojagi method. The work began as an exploration of the boundaries between professional practice and cultural craft, but evolved into a deeper investigation of identity and memory.

Kim’s background spans both design and education, informing how she approaches the intersection of craft and architecture. Through careful folding and intricate stitching techniques, she creates flexible spatial qualities that mirror architectural elements while maintaining textile softness. The resulting work celebrates both technical rigor and artistic exploration, showing how traditional methods can be expanded through contemporary architectural understanding. Her practice demonstrates particular sensitivity to the porosity between disciplines, allowing techniques from each field to inform and enhance the other.

Jenn Kitagawa’s window installation “L’heure Bleu” at LightForm creates an analog interpretation of digital phenomena. The piece combines cotton, wool, and wood into woven compositions that translate pixelated imagery into tactile form. Kitagawa’s interpretation of technological concepts like cloud computing through traditional craft techniques creates a compelling dialogue about embodiment and presence in an increasingly virtual world.

The installation’s materials and methods carry particular significance given Kitagawa’s Japanese and Scottish heritage. Her time-intensive processes emphasize physical engagement with materials, challenging hierarchies between fine art and craft traditions. The resulting work invites viewers to consider how digital concepts might be understood through tangible, handcrafted objects.