Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles (2024)
The Mead Gallery was the first venue for this ambitious group exhibition from Hayward Gallery Touring exploring how contemporary artists are using textiles in surprising and radical ways.
Exhibition dates: 9 October – 15 December 2024
Curated by artist Caroline Achaintre, the artists in Material Worlds take the everyday, intimate and accessible qualities of textiles to create artworks that are theatrical, bold, unsettling and humorous.
Spanning a wide range of approaches, the artists in the exhibition share a deep awareness of the cultural significance of textiles, alongside a desire to test their potential as a medium for contemporary art.
The familiar, material stuff of everyday life is transformed into the unexpected - the ordinary is made extraordinary - to explore ideas of the body, identity, gender, race, heritage, myth and folklore.
The exhibition featured the work of Caroline Achaintre, Tonico Lemos Auad, Jonathan Baldock, Phyllida Barlow , Alexandre Da Cunha, Enam Gbewonyo, Holly Hendry, Paul Maheke, Anna Perach, Yelen Popova, Paloma Proudfoot, Yinka Shonibare, Rae-Yen Song, Tenant of Culture.
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