The 7th edition of CONTEXTILE – Contemporary Textile Art Biennial is designed with a focus on the biennial's involvement with the community(ies) of the territory(ies) in which they live and work. The 2024 Biennale is committed to creating and working together, reinforcing its commitment to art and culture, but also to the ecosystem and sustainability. In this way, what has been one of its most marked lines of identity is highlighted: a platform for meeting and creating a community.
NTRO Output Type
- Curated Exhibition, Event or Festival
NTRO Output Category
- Curated Exhibition, Event or Festival : Exhibition/event
Place
Guimaraes, PortugalVenue
Venues across the municipal town of Guimaraes, Portugal (museums, churches, schools)NTRO Publisher
Contextile BiennaleStart Date
2024-09-07End Date
2024-12-15Medium
hand knitting of wool and acrylic yarns, timber, canvasResearch Statement
CONTEXTILE 2024 explored the importance of Touch. Touch is a powerful tool for fostering closer, collaborative, and healthier human relationships. The exhibition explored how textiles and touch are intrinsically linked, forming a complex relationship that spans various dimensions. If textile conveys complex cultural, historical, technological, and emotional meanings through patterns, colors, communication, and textures, then new identities, new symbolisms from older histories, and inclusive narratives can be reimagined.
A series of 24 text based knitted text works were presented at Contextile. These texts arose out of my earlier exhibition at Linden Gallery Self Care Action series. A presentation of further texts in Contextile extended this project, which sought to explore the ways that self care has its roots in social and political change movements. The works feature texts which promote ways to care for oneself and recharge, in order to sustain urgent social change.
Contextile is an international biennial of textile art. 1.300 artists (from 79 countries) applied to participate and only 50 were chosen by a jury including Lala de Dios (professor of Art and Textile History, curator), Janis Jefferies (emeritus professor of visual arts, curator, writer and artist), Cindy Steiler (textile artist), Magda Soboń (artist and art teacher), and Cláudia Melo (artistic director of Contextile). Contextile is visited by artists and curators around the world.Size or Duration of Work
twenty four panels each 55 x 40cm, hand knitted, canvas, timber, were installed in a grid in an area of 4 x 2.5 meters in the main exhibition hall
