Sandra Sawatzky

Sandra Sawatzky investigates history, environmentalism, and modern life with her embroidery skills. After two decades working as an independent filmmaker producing art films Sawatzky embarked on a path as a fine craft visual artist and created The Black Gold Tapestry. The 70 metre long “film on cloth” took nine years to research, design, illustrate and hand-embroider and is a narrative work relaying a social history of fossil fuels reflecting on climate change and transition, from the beginning of time to the present day. The work was featured in both the New York Times and the Guardian and you can view it at the MassArt Museum in Boston beginning June 27, 2024.

Her most recent work, The Age of Uncertainty, showcased at The Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary in 2022. It is a 12 – panel embroidered art installation examining the uncomfortable truths and consequences of humankind’s march to modernity through resource extraction. It too received considerable press.

Her new work-in-progress, Back to the Garden, is an altarpiece to nature meant to pollinate passion for the planet, a way to perceive the world and its preservation that connects to hearts and minds in a way that science alone cannot.