Addressing the historical context of slow fashion alongside cutting-edge research in sustainable materials, this day-long symposium brings together members of the Slow Fashion Research Cluster (led by AHVA Assistant Professor Germaine Koh) and invited guests for two focused panels, and concludes with an afternoon workshop that moves from critical context to material innovation.
In conjunction with the symposium, the Slow Fashion Lab Exhibition will have special public opening hours from 12 to 4 p.m. at the AHVA Gallery, Audain Art Centre, 6398 University Boulevard.
Slow Fashion Symposium
Saturday, March 14, 2026
9 a.m.–2 p.m.
Room 1002, Audain Art Centre
6398 University Boulevard, Vancouver
Program
Panel 1: Contexts
9–11 a.m.
Hazel Clark – Sustainable fashion theory
Anna Hunter – Regenerative wool economies in Manitoba
Carl Stewart – Historical recycled textiles and contemporary weaving practice.
Panel 2: Materials
11 a.m.–1 p.m.
Karla Sandwith – Hand crafted flax
Kathy Dunster – Climate adaptive coastal flax trials
Mackenzie Kelly-Frère – Milkweed fibre development
Marc Massicotte – Hemp-based aerogel insulation
Farzan Gholamreza & Rohith Jayaraman Krishnamurthy – Circular cotton composites
Lunch
1–2 p.m.
Natural Dye and Fibre Workshop with Rita Point Kompst, Musqueam Artist (limited seats available)
2–5 p.m.
The symposium is co-organized by Alexandra Peck, Assistant Professor and Audain Chair in Historical Indigenous Art, and T’ai Smith, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia, with additional support from Heather Young, Assistant Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Moderated by AHVA PhD candidate Alison Ariss.
Alison Ariss, Panel Moderator
Alison is a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History, a UBC Public Humanities Hub Graduate Fellow, and the Slow Fashion Cluster Manager. Her research interests include Indigenous textiles, museum studies, and public art. As a settler-scholar, her research centres Coast Salish knowledge to understand public installations of Salish weaving. Alison collaborated with the Coqualeetza Cultural Education Centre to document Salish weavings in public and private collections, and collaborated on the recent book, The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog (Harbour Publishing, 2025). She is grateful to have learned weaving with expert Salish weavers Chepximiya Siyam’ Hereditary Chief Dr. Janice George and Skwetsimeltxw (Buddy) Joseph, Debra qwasen Sparrow, Frieda George, and Dr. Susan sa’hLa mitSa Pavel.
Dr. Hazel Clark
SLOW + fashion | @hazelclark_nyc
Based on the forthcoming book, (Fashion in Action) SLOW, this presentation is set against a backdrop of massive waste, intensive energy use, human exploitation, and over-consumption of fast fashion. Instead, it offers a thoughtful, practical, sustainable approach to fashion that speaks to more mindful, caring, humanitarian, and creative attitudes and practices.
Hazel Clark, Ph.D., is Professor of Design Studies & Fashion Studies at Parsons School of Design, the New School, New York, where she initiated and teaches in the M.A. Fashion Studies program. Her article, “SLOW + FASHION–an Oxymoron, or a Promise for the Future..?” (Fashion Theory, 2008), initiated an inquiry into fashion and sustainability that informed the forthcoming book, (Fashion in Action) SLOW.
Anna Hunter
longwayhomestead.com | @longwayhomestead | facebook.com/longwayhomestead
Anna Hunter is a first-generation sheep farmer and wool mill owner in eastern Manitoba, Treaty One Territory. She is passionate about building community and connecting rural fibre farmers with urban consumers, fibre artists, and crafters. Anna believes that regenerative agriculture and climate-beneficial food and clothing are integral to moving forward as farmers, fibre artists, and Manitobans, and she is passionate about growing a vibrant Canadian wool industry. Her first book Sheep, Shepherd, & Land, came out in 2023. Recently, her best selling book, The True Cost of Wool, was released in June 2025. Learn more about Anna, her farm, and wool mill at longwayhomestead.com
Carl Stewart
Whole cloth is not the whole story
carlstewart.ca | @carlstewart_weaver
Presented by Ottawa-based weaver Carl Stewart, Whole cloth is not the whole story is a comparison of 19th and early 20th century recycled textiles from Prince Edward Island and rural Japan, and how these textile traditions have informed his project Wholecloth, a series of hand-woven cloths made from recycled and upcycled material.
Carl Stewart is a weaver living and working in Ottawa. Stewart’s work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and the United States. He has received professional grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa. Stewart’s work hangs in the collections of the Ottawa Art Gallery, City of Ottawa, Canada Council Art Bank, Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, NY.
Karla Sandwith
Hand crafted linen fabric: is there a place for ancient methods in our contemporary times?
Hand-methods of linen production, from ancient times until now, remain relatively unchanged. While they are resource intensive, relying on abundant land, water, infrastructure, labour and know-how, Sandwith explores if these methods hold relevance in contemporary times. Indeed, can flax offer a reasonable, economical, and sustainable alternative to current synthetics?
Karla is a plant scientist, a spinner, a weaver, and a lover of linen textiles. She strives to find the practical niche for small-batch, hand-crafted linen in our contemporary world. Karla believes the story of flax is the story of human culture, and she aspires to share that story so it endures and remains relevant.
Dr. Kathy Dunster
The Future Beyond Flax Field Trials on the Coast
After 10 years of growing flax, we are learning what varieties can adapt to climate change on the coast and how we might stimulate a local fabric industry. Looking ahead to the next 10 years, I will offer ideas on how we might create a vibrant cooperative plant-based industry directly connecting consumers to the chain of effort–from growers and processors, to spinners, dyers, and weavers.
Dr. Kathy Dunster is a plant ecologist and biogeographer focused on land conservation. Her hyper-local practice is grounded in bioregional ethnobotany and ancestral ways leading to awareness and stewardship of the world around us. She is currently working on a 250-metre Indigenous edible hedgerow at the Kwantlen Polytechnic University Garden City Farm that will provide food, medicine, and knowledge for all. Since 2016 she has been collaborating with EartHand Gleaners to grow and find the best climate-adaptive flax varieties of local flax for linen production.
Mackenzie Kelly-Frère
Milkweed to Damask
Milkweed to Damask is focused on developing approaches for fibre extraction, spinning, and weaving with milkweed bast fibre. Working with several species of milkweed, Kelly-Frère is cultivating a slow collaboration with plants, bacteria, and the weather, with the eventual goal of damask cloth cultivated and handmade in Treaty Seven territory.
Mackenzie Kelly-Frère is an artist and educator. His research focuses on collaboration with material that considers our co-evolution with the plants and animals who provide the fibre that we use to make cloth; and the communities and relationships required to sustain this activity. He is currently Director and Associate Professor in the School of Craft & Emerging Media at the Alberta University of the Arts. Mackenzie lives in Mohkinstsis (Calgary), Canada, with husband, Kristofer, and daughter, Elizabeth.
Marc Massicotte (in collaboration with Dr. Feng Jiang & Dr. Jianan Yin)
Advancing Natural Fibres for Technical Outerwear
Baerfell’s work transforms Canadian hemp into high-performance aerogel insulation for outerwear. As a UBC spinout, the company is scaling this material from lab to market, navigating technical and manufacturing challenges along the way. The project explores how natural fibres could meet and surpass synthetic performance, offering a sustainable, circular alternative for the future of technical apparel.
Marc Massicotte is CEO & Co-Founder of Baerfell, a UBC spinout developing hemp-based aerogel insulation for sustainable apparel and advanced materials. He holds a MASc in Chemical & Biological Engineering from UBC and a B.Eng in Bioresource Engineering from McGill. CTO & Co-Founder Dr. Feng Jiang, a Tier II Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor at UBC, has over 20 years of expertise in cellulose aerogels and bio-based materials commercialization. Dr. Jianan Yin, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC, specializes in advanced bio-based aerogels. Together, the team is advancing natural fibre alternatives to high-performance synthetic materials for circular, low-impact textiles.
Dr. Farzan Gholamreza & Rohith Jayaraman Krishnamurthy
From Worn to Worthy: Extending Cotton’s Life through Circular Reinforcement
New research improves the coolness factor for athletes
Slow fashion needs textiles that last longer and waste less. We upcycle post-consumer cotton and recovered PMMA into durable cotton–PMMA composite fabric using a simple impregnation and consolidation process. The approach turns low-value textile waste into long-life material, reducing demand for virgin fibers and enabling circular pathways for both cotton and PMMA streams.
Dr. Farzan Gholamreza is a senior research engineer working within the Materials & Manufacturing Research Institute (MMRI) at UBC, Okanagan Campus. He also serves as Project Manager at MMRI and as Coordinator of the NSERC CREATE on Product Design for Human Comfort. In these roles, he leads initiatives focused on innovative product design aimed at enhancing human comfort. Dr. Gholamreza’s work bridges materials science, manufacturing research, and human-centered design, supporting interdisciplinary academic research and industry collaborations.
Rohith Jayaraman Krishnamurthy is a Doctoral Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at UBC, specializing in the circular economy and advanced manufacturing. His research focuses on the sustainable recycling and upcycling of denture-grade PMMA waste. He pioneered a “Degradation-State Digital Twin” framework that utilizes multi-modal data, such as FTIR and rheology, to infer material degradation history and optimize the mechanical performance of recycled composites.
Rita Point Kompst
Fiber Natural Dye Workshop with Rita Point Kompst, Musqueam Artist
Natural dyeing with mushrooms, plants, and lichens are becoming increasingly popular. I create the colours of the rainbow through intensive workshops where one learns the basic introduction into natural dyeing with the gifts offered to us by the land.
Rita Point Kompst is a Musqueam artist born and raised in Musqueam. She is a cedar weaver and a natural dyer who uses mushrooms, plants, and lichens. Her late father, Joe Becker, a former Musqueam Chief, was mainly a carver and a fisherman. Rita started her cedar weaving career when her father passed away, as per her cultural teachings and protocol. She experienced several personal losses over the next seven years and continued weaving during her healing journey. Several years ago, her mentor, Todd Devries, a Haida weaver, encouraged her to begin teaching cedar weaving. She then attended a natural dye workshop and knew instantly that she had to learn this craft, as well. Rita now teaches cedar weaving and natural dyeing full time, at educational institutions of all levels, as well as museums and community centres. Primarily working with sheep wool, she loves “playing” with and learning about other fibres. Both of her mediums focus on connecting to where we live, work, and play! She weaves to heal!
