In Communion

Exhibiting Artists:

Sydney Hanson

Barbara Hobot

Alisa McRonald

Gwen Penner (in collaboration with Rebekah Rempel)

Sadie Simon

In Communion is a contemporary group exhibition based in call-and-response engagement. In 1992, Nancy-Lou Patterson was commissioned to design a series of 14 kneelers for Keffer Memorial Chapel at Martin Luther University College. The kneelers, were hand stitched by a community of women from Lutheran congregations through Waterloo Region and used within services at the chapel along the alter rail. Originally created as devotional and communal objects, the kneelers embody acts of care, labour, faith, and collective making. They exist at the intersection of artistic practice, craft traditions, spirituality, and community memory. Through contemporary artistic responses, In Communion reconsiders these works not as static artifacts, but as living points of dialogue capable of generating new conversations about community/communing, spirituality, accountability, and stewardship.

The exhibition adopts the structure of call and response, a form deeply rooted in liturgical traditions and communal participation. The historic kneelers serve as the initial call, while contemporary artworks become responses that extend, complicate, challenge, or reinterpret their themes and meanings. Through this exchange, the exhibition creates a space where past and present, archive and imagination, tradition and critique coexist.

This exhibition is informed by theological understandings of communion as a gathering of many voices into shared relationship, exploring how contemporary art can foster meaningful encounters across difference. Participating artists will meet with curator Catherine Mellinger to choose the kneeler designs they want to use as inspiration for their work, and are invited to do their own research into use of kneelers, communion, and Keffer Memorial Chapel’s history as part of their creation process.

The exhibition will take place at the Keffer Memorial Chapel, which was reconstructed in 2017 to function as a space that is open to all that is sacred, and how the sacred can be practiced in multiple ways, supporting community gatherings, events and multi-faith spiritual gatherings while critically engaging its role in colonial history. Remaining a Lutheran Seminary chapel, the space exists in tension, inviting reflection on accountability to place, history, and ongoing transformation shaped by its community. This exhibition asks artists to create with that tension in mind.