FELT unfurled
Christie Contemporary
part of the Design TO Festival
Toronto 2025
Rolls of felt six feet wide by eighty yards long in total are turned into an interior environment that crosses installation with functional design. Multiples formed from six foot squares create a wall-covering that turns into seating with a nod to the anti-form movement of the late 1960s as pieces take shape from the inherent qualities of the material—Felt rolls, felt folds, felt puckers, felt pleats, felt pads, felt cushions felt bulges, felt creases.
It’s a gathering space, reading room, maker space, conversation platform.
The exhibition was activated by four events including an opening and closing reception and two salon-style gatherings:
Felt & Form: A Conversation with Tom Folland and Ken Hayes
Join in an informal discussion with Dr Thomas Folland, a professor of art history at Los Angeles Mission College with a Ph.D. from UCLA. Formerly a curator and art critic based in Toronto, Folland has published extensively on queer modernism and conceptual art, and is a contributing writer to SmartHistory.org, a center for public art history, and Dr Kenneth Hayes is an architectural historian and contemporary art critic who lives and works in Sudbury. He studied architecture at the University of Waterloo and McGill University, and has a Ph.D. in Architectural History at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. He writes on photography, architecture and material culture.
What do you do with a square? A Maker Salon
Take up the challenge of making something from a given square using material and tools provided. 14” squares of felt are piled in the gallery, free for the making. Follow designs on display, or design and make your own piece. Not a maker? Join the gathering. A piece of felt is free for the taking.
