The creation of textiles dates back to the beginnings of human history. Throughout this time, textiles have served a multitude of functions from clothing, use as devotional objects, or as a medium for storytelling across diverse cultures. In recent years, textiles have witnessed a resurgence in recognition within museums and galleries. In 2023, several UK exhibitions, such as Magdalena Abakanowicz at Tate Modern, Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery at Kettle’s Yard, and Threads: ‘Breathing Stories into Materials’ at the Arnolfini, have thrust textiles to the forefront of the cultural agenda. Looking ahead to 2024, the Barbican will spotlight the transformative power of this historically under-examined medium through the ongoing exhibition Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art.
This museum debate will investigate the contemporary display of textiles in art spaces, grounded in themes of gender, colonisation, and indigeneity, among others. The panel brings together scholars with substantial textile curatorial experience and a contemporary artist working primarily in textiles.
Speakers
Ann Coxon is Curator of International Art at Tate Modern. She has curated numerous exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern, including Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope, 2022; Inherited Threads, 2022; Dorothea Tanning, 2019; Anni Albers, 2018, Beyond Craft, 2017, Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture, 2015; and Saloua Raouda Choucair, 2013. Ann is a widely published writer and the author of two books: Motherhood, 2023 and a monograph on the artist Louise Bourgeois, 2010 (both Tate publishing). She is currently completing a PhD thesis on Loom Thinking: New Tapestry in Europe in the 1960s and 70s.
Lotte Johnson is Curator at Barbican Art Gallery. Lotte co-curated the ongoing Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, a group exhibition of 50 international artists which explores textiles as tools of resistance. She also curated the retrospective Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics and new commissions by artists Toyin Ojih Odutola, SERAFINE1369, Yto Barrada and Bedwyr Williams at the Barbican, as well as contributing to a number of other Barbican exhibitions, including Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art, Basquiat: Boom for Real and The World of Charles and Ray Eames. She has edited and authored books to accompany many of these projects and regularly contributes to publications on modern and contemporary art. Lotte previously worked at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Anya Paintsil is a London based textile artist of Welsh and Ghanaian heritage. Combining traditional hand rug making techniques with afro hair styling methods, Anya’s practice is largely autobiographical, taking inspiration from her childhood in North Wales, family stories, and Welsh and Ghanaian mythologies – while exploring identity, gendered labour and seeking to promote artistic practices historically devalued due to their associations with femininity and other marginalised groups.
Amy Tobin is Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge and Curator, contemporary programmes at Kettle’s Yard, the University’s modern and contemporary art gallery. She has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard including Linderism and Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends. In 2023, she published a major article on the artist Candace Hill-Montgomery in Art History as well as her first monograph Women Artists Together: Art in the Age of Women’s Liberation with Yale University Press.
Organised by The Courtauld’s MA Curating the Art Museum 2023/24 cohort.
