TALKING TEXTILES

cultural thread

Image courtesy of Gallery MOMO
Until the 12th of May 2019, The Textile Museum in Tilburg, The Netherlands, is all about ‘Cultural Thread’ and using textiles as a tool for socio-political reflection. Featuring work by Aiko Tezuka, Célio Braga, Eylem Aladogan, Fiona Tan, Hana Miletić, Jennifer Tee, Mary Sibande, Otobong Nkanga, and Vincent Vulsma. The exhibition explores the vulnerability of human existence, cultural exchange, cultural textile and the long slave trade history of textile.
“We live in a world where boundaries between countries and people are becoming increasingly blurred, power relations are shifting radically and cultures are mixing. The exhibition Cultural Threads presents exceptional pieces by contemporary artists who use textiles as a powerful tool to address a range of socio-political issues. They link textiles to their own search for identity and belonging in a globalizing world and use them to unravel histories and outline new future perspectives.”
This theme is partly inspired by the book Cultural Thread – Transnational Textiles Today by Professor Jessica Hemmings. This book and the exhibition are all about the role that artists and designers play in the representation of global history, identity, and cultural interweaving.
photo by Eylem Aladogan
photo by Kristien Daem