August 26 - September 26, 2026
Reception: TBA
Craft Ontario Gallery, 401 Richmond St West, Suite 108, Toronto
A solo exhibition by Hitoko Okada exploring speculative futures of the textile supply chain through two large-scale installations combining ceramics, recovered ocean plastic, and traditional Japanese materials to interrogate the displacement of heritage plant fibres by petrochemicals.
Hitoko Okada is a queer, Nikkei (Japanese diaspora), interdisciplinary artist researcher, and facilitator based in Hamilton, Ontario. Their artistic research and fashion practice explores the cultural, and historical materiality of Japanese folk heritage textile crafts within the context of contemporary geopolitics and colonial histories of the global fashion supply chain. Hitoko has participated in several artist residencies nationally and internationally, and has exhibited in Canada, USA and Japan. She has curated, programmed and facilitated artistic and community-based projects in Vancouver, British Columbia and in the regions in and around Hamilton, Ontario. They are a recipient of multiple grants, and awards from Canada Council of the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Hamilton City Enrichment Fund. Hitoko has been researching Japanese indigo since 2018, and has recently planted 1,250 seedlings in her backyard for her third season.
hitoko.ca
Banner image: Hitoko Okada, "Setsubun: sacred offerings to the divine divide" installation at Cambridge Art Galleries, Queen's Square, 2024. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
