Genesis Centre Community Weaving Project
Community weaving, fibre arts, cedar loom
Genesis Centre, NE Calgary
The Genesis Centre Community Weaving Project brought together residents of NE Calgary around a six-foot cedar Earth Loom to weave a collective artwork exploring food security, ecological awareness, and community resilience. Over multiple workshops and open weaving sessions, participants contributed materials and stories to a growing textile that embodied the interconnections between what we eat, how we grow it, and who we share it with.
As lead artist and project manager, Melisa designed the loom structure, developed workshop curricula linking food systems to fibre arts, coordinated community engagement events, and managed the project from concept through installation. The project was supported by Calgary Arts Development through the Community Run Public Art Microgrant program and partnered thematically with the Calgary Climate Hub.
The finished weaving incorporated natural materials — corn husks, dried herbs, repurposed fabrics — chosen for their connections to food, land, and community care. It remains installed at the Genesis Centre as a lasting testament to what happens when art-making becomes a space for conversation about the things that matter most.
The Situation
The Genesis Centre in NE Calgary serves one of the city's most diverse neighbourhoods — a community rich in cultural traditions around food and making, but often underserved by arts programming. Calgary Arts Development's Community Run Public Art Microgrant offered an opportunity to create a participatory artwork that would belong to this community rather than being placed in it. Melisa saw the chance to bring together her fibre arts practice, her food systems knowledge, and her facilitation skills in a project that could teach food security through the act of making together.
The Approach
Melisa designed and built a six-foot cedar Earth Loom as the centrepiece — large enough to be a public gathering point, sturdy enough for ongoing community use. She developed workshop curricula linking food security to fibre arts, choosing weaving materials with intentional connections to food and land: corn husks, dried herbs, repurposed fabrics. Each material told a story about growing, preparing, or sharing food. Community engagement events were designed as open, drop-in sessions where anyone could contribute — no art experience required. The loom became a conversation starter as much as an art-making tool.
The Challenges
Managing a project of this scale was new territory. Coordinating community engagement events, managing the budget, liaising with funders (Calgary Arts Development) and thematic partners (Calgary Climate Hub), and maintaining artistic integrity while ensuring genuine community ownership required project management skills alongside artistic ones. Working with a diverse community meant being responsive to different communication styles, cultural expectations around participation, and varying levels of comfort with art-making.
The Impact
The finished weaving — incorporating natural materials chosen for their food and land connections — remains installed at the Genesis Centre as a lasting community artwork. The project received press coverage (LiveWire Calgary) and demonstrated that participatory art can genuinely serve community building rather than just performing it. Community members who participated developed new skills, new connections, and a tangible sense of shared ownership over a public artwork.
Lessons Learned
The Genesis project taught Melisa that she can work at larger scales than she previously attempted — both physically (the six-foot loom) and organizationally (multi-session community engagement, funder coordination). It also reinforced that the process IS the artwork: the conversations that happened while weaving, the stories shared about food and family, the connections made between neighbours were as much the "art" as the finished textile.