Seated on the stone floor of a medieval fortress in Italy’s Tuscan hills, students rip thin, one-inch strips of fabric. They then knot the strips together to create extra chunky yarns. With these chunky yarns, they use oversized, thick crochet hooks, knitting needles and six foot-by-six foot tapestry looms.
This is in the Fortezza del Girifalco, in Cortona, in the Tuscany region of Italy, affectionately known to our group as “the castle.”
As a fashion and textile designer and professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), I am here with students who are participating in the The Creative School’s Global Learning program.
I create with different yarns and software, developing art-to-wear, objects, sculptures and installations. Creating with textiles is how I express and process my ideas. Yet the purpose of this creative textile work with the students in this program goes far beyond exposing them to textiles. It’s about exploring processes through which we can unearth radical new forms, concepts and esthetics.
Students are from diverse programs at the Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University (fashion, interior design, graphic communication management, journalism, professional communication, media production, performance and sports media). Over three weeks, we’ll create a substantial textile exhibition for peers, visitors and the Cortona residents.
Site of creative life
The Fortezza del Girifalco is a site of creative life. It has been repurposed and renovated for new visitors, artists and audiences. Most notably, it is the centre of the international photography festival Cortona on The Move.
Yearly, the Fortezza is reimagined, with new interior work, additional and updated partitions, floors and surfaces to facilitate the design of this world-class exhibition. It has a bistro, with coffee, drinks and food.
Planning such an educational-immersive experience involved a great deal of collaboration: discussions with the Creative School’s dean’s office, especially Sadia Kamran, associate director, communications and international development, and Kathleen Pirrie Adams, associate professor from the School of Media, as well as our Cortona operations lead, Tommaso Rossi. After this, the Fortezza Atelier course was planned and piloted in June 2025.
The aims were simple: show up, contribute, be creative and collaborate with your peers.
In three weeks, there was near-perfect attendance. Students gained skills and knowledge, culminating in the creation of a textile exhibition.
Creativity and craft
In the 2021 article, “Build to think, build to learn: What can fabrication and creativity bring to rethink (higher) education?”, authors Jean-Henry Morin and Laurent Moccozet combine their respective expertise in information systems and the representation of and visualization of knowledge to examine the inherent benefits of hands-on education. They consider how this enriches and deepens theoretical understanding.
It is this common tacit knowledge that can’t be taught in the metaverse because it requires a shared embodied experience.
The course introduced students to making textiles, weaving, crochet, knitting and draping with a common raw material to start with, which was a roll of unbleached cotton calico or muslin. It was a purposely humble material that relied on the students’ creativity and resourcefulness.
The frayed yarns and rudimentary studio environment simplified the output, but this limitation became a benefit; they began to pick their exhibition spaces and discuss concepts, narratives and fabrication.
The Fortezza Atelier gave students the chance to unplug, disconnect and use their hands to create a textile project inspired by the Tuscan setting and their personal impressions of international travel and learning.
The classroom: the Fortezza del Girifalco
The journey to the Fortezza was a large part of the experience, set on top of the Tuscan hills.
Its steep incline provided a panoramic view of the surrounding Basilica of Santa Margherita, towns and valley.
It was accessed by a challenging but hikeable path or a small shuttle van that took the students up to the site in groups of eight. Some students would hike and some would ride.
For me, this daily commute was a near-spiritual set-up for the day, providing separation, concentration and a peaceful attitude toward work in the Fortezza — a pathway for other but related embodied creative practices.
Work began and ended with the journey up the mountain, which took presence and commitment every session.
Our Italian team member, Rossi, who manages the Fortezza, brought his two- year-old dachshund named Rustyn.
Rustyn became an honoured part of the Fortezza Atelier course, playing with the students, providing a mascot/emotional support animal role and even serving as a special guest at their final exhibition.
Communal practice
Not even a full day into the process, and without being asked, students were assisting each other, sharing knowledge and skills, forming teams organically and celebrating each other’s accomplishments. I helped and contributed to the communal learning environment.
After setting the expectations and aims on the first day, we, as a class of 32 plus one dog, worked productively, set our schedule and fulfilled our commitment to the course and each other.
Through interviews, informal conversation and a final reflective assignment, students shared their insights on the course: that with hard work, investment, care and collaboration, you can envision and create something with lasting impact.
For most, these projects seemed unattainable, even unimaginable, before time in Cortona.
The educational and social benefits of this opportunity for faculty, students and higher learning institutions also point to significant potential for other iterations of site-specific studio practice experiential learning programs tailored to specific locations and contexts.
Tanya White works for/consults for Toronto Metropolitan University, teaches in the Creative School Department.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
