Dates: October 1st – November 21st, 2026
Gallery Hours: Tuesdays – Fridays: 10 AM – 5 PM & Saturdays: 12 PM – 4 PM
Location: ODD Gallery, Dënäkär Zho | KIAC
Indigenous Territory: Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in territory, Dawson City, Yukon

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, October 1st at 7 PM – 10 PM

Threading through Time

My current body of work and research seeks to center care methodologies by connecting colonial pasts and diasporic presents, to dream up futures that are uninherited. Through hand embroidery, textile-based installation, and creative writing, my art practice pays tribute to ancestral and cultural roots, while intimately and speculatively reimagining diasporic futures. Using deeply personal storytelling, I invite viewers to consider the nuanced migrant experiences of home, belonging and displacement. I’m interested in how textiles can carry memory, cultural heritage, gendered labour, historical contexts and personal narratives of migration. The labour-intensive process of hand embroidery is a way to honour the women who came before me, while unravelling the memories embedded in South Indian textiles. By reimagining traditional practices in contemporary forms, I investigate how displaced identities adapt, survive and dream forward. My work highlights women’s role in preserving heritage and considers how craft practices can be tools of resistance and healing.

About Par Nair

Par Nair (she/her) is an Indian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist and educator who lives and works in the GTA (Canada). The primary focus of Par’s art practice is to investigate and explore lived experiences of diaspora using decolonial methods and a return to ancestral practices through paintings, hand embroidery, installation, and creative writing. Par acquired her Master’s (MFA) in Interdisciplinary Arts from OCAD University and has shown her works nationally and internationally. Notable showings include Nuit Blanche ‘23, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Bradley Museum, Eastern Edge Gallery (NL), Craft Ontario, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Varley Art Gallery, The Textile Museum of Canada, Riverdale Art Gallery, Rajiv Menon Contemporary (LA) and The Kochi Biennale (India). Over her career, Par’s practice has been supported by various OAC and CCA grants. In 2025, she was shortlisted as a finalist for The Salt Spring National Award and The CIBC National Art Prize. Par currently teaches drawing, painting and critical theory courses at OCAD University. Par also facilitates painting and hand embroidery workshops in collaboration with local libraries and art institutions, notably, The Art Gallery of Burlington and The Royal Ontario Museum.