Warp & Weft, a collaborative exhibition held by Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery and the Remai Modern, is an installation of weavings and tapestries created by the extraordinary Finnish artist Kaija Sanelma Harris.

The exhibition will be presented across two venues: Saskatchewan Craft Council (SCC) and Remai Modern, located at 102 Spadina Crescent E, Saskatoon. In recognition of the complementary missions of the two organizations, SCC’s exhibition highlights the creative, personal, and technical shifts in Kaija’s extraordinary work, while Remai Modern’s exhibition will situate her within the context of visual art history.

Together, these exhibitions tell the story of one of Canada’s most important textile artists. Both venues include works from all decades of Harris’s career, as well as preparatory drawings, fibre studies, and archival materials. Remai Modern’s selection of more than 50 works is brought together from private and public collections across and the country and includes Sun Ascending (1985), Harris’s largest and most important architectural commission, created for the Mies Van Der Rohe designed TD Centre (Toronto), which is now in the collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina).

Kaija Sanelma Harris (née Lehtimäki) was born in Finland in 1939. Her childhood experiences of the Finnish and Swedish landscapes, of displacement due to war, and being surrounded by accomplished textile workers throughout her life, all served to provide a rich personal history and ambition to create. Upon moving to Saskatchewan, Kaija recalled, “I fell in love with the province early, driving from the south to the north. I loved the light in the prairie … The horizon was a discovery for me. I’d never seen the sky and the earth meet the way they do in Saskatchewan. The sheer simplicity of the landscape is powerful. I like the land and everything that grows on it.”

This love for the sky, land, growth, as well as the prairie light, is seen in Kaija’s work. All choices of material and technique mattered to Kaija, both conceptually and in the tactile experience. She often blended different yarns together to get just the right shade of colour. The type of materials (silk, wool, linen, even photo filters) were structurally and conceptually important: wool is warm and comforting; linen is a hard and aloof material. She chose materials and colours to convey, with great impact, the message she wished to get across.

The impact of Kaija’s technical skill, use of colour, innovation in design and interpretation of nature, as well as contributions to the Saskatchewan art and craft community, has created a long-lasting legacy.

The Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery has installed weavings and tapestries from personal and private collections that highlight major shifts and developments in Kaija’s practice from the 1970’s to the late 2000’s. An archive of Kaija’s personal correspondence, interviews, artist statements, and notebooks, as well as design plans and marginalia, has provided the Saskatchewan Craft Council and visitors the opportunity to hear Kaija’s voice and perspectives on craft, technique, and her relationship to the landscape. Kaija’s keen sense of colour, sculptural approach to inventive compositions, and experimentation with non-traditional materials, creates a vibrant, dynamic, and yet reflective exhibition.

“It has been said that painters paint the landscape they live in or the one they wish to live in. I weave the state of mind I live in or the one I wish to be in.”
– Kaija Sanelma Harris, Artist Statement, not dated, estimated time period: late 60’s, early 70’s

Warp & Weft is organized by the Saskatchewan Craft Council, in collaboration with the Remai Modern.

Remai Modern’s exhibition runs from September 28, 2024 to March 9, 2025 and is curated by Michelle Jacques, Remai Modern’s Head of Exhibitions & Collections/Chief Curator.

The SCC’s exhibition runs from October 12, 2024 to February 8, 2025 and is curated by Steph Canning and Maia Stark.