Woven, threaded, stitched and sewn, textile practice predates all recorded history; in fact some anthropologists speculate that textiles – made for warmth and shelter – may have been humanity’s first technology.
Manual textile-making has historically been a communal process, too, providing space for conversation, solidarity and, sometimes, resistance. Over the past decade, textile arts have been responsible for some of Australia’s most popular exhibitions. And yet as a form, textiles have a history of marginalisation in the high art world; associated with women, domesticity, First Nations traditions, and queer and class activism. They have been ignored or dismissed by the “pale, male and stale” art canon.
