3rd European textile and Fibre Art Festival - Catalogue

”Global Intrigue”: 3 rd European Textile and Fibre Art Triennial
Textiles play a central role in the construction of
national, regional and cultural identity but
through their common languages of weaving,
stitching, pattern dyeing and printing, their
utilitarian histories and their sensory and symbolic
qualities they link people and cultures
across time and space. They do this in a way
that other forms of cultural production cannot.
Textiles represent the ‘ties that bind’.
The rather enigmatic theme of ‘global intrigue’
seemed both apposite and timely for this
third Textile and Fibre Art Triennial organised
by the Museum of Decorative Arts and
Design in Riga. In the first decade of the
21 st century a sense of place, of local tradition
and cultural context flourish in textile
art alongside a growing global and transcultural
awareness. This was one of the
qualities that the exhibition jury looked for
in assembling a strong and coherent show
for 2007, and there was an encouraging
degree of consensus – as well as occasional
healthy dissent – among jury members over
the criteria for the selection of work. The
most resonant pieces raised the question of
what constitutes ‘nation’ in a global society
and, to borrow a textile analogy, interwove
concept and technique into a seamless whole.
The jury interrogated the work that had been
submitted for its success or failure in
addressing the theme of global consumer
society and its relationship to indigenous
cultures and traditions. In the work that was
selected for the exhibition themes included
diasporas, hybridity, the rise of Islam, and
the social and cultural impact of the
demand for cheap human labour, an issue
of particular relevance to the textiles and
fashion industries. The jury also considered
the Triennial’s underlying theme of the role
of tradition in contemporary artistic practice
since one of the key characteristics of textile
art, wherever it is produced in the world,
has been the marriage of tradition and innovation.
Innovation here manifested itself not
only in the increased evidence of new media
like digital printing and computer-assisted
Jacquard weaving, but also in the reinvention
of traditional techniques such as piecing
and quilting, knitting, tapestry, and stencil
dyeing.
Riga’s Textile and Fibre Art Triennial is becoming
increasingly ambitious and expanding its
horizons with each show in the series.
Dominated, unsurprisingly, in 2001 by work
from the three Baltic states of Latvia,
Lithuania and Estonia the exhibition had
already, by the time of the last event in
2004, burst its European seams to include
submissions from the USA, Japan and China.
This year’s show has a good spread of work
from across the whole of northern and central
Europe but is dominated interestingly by
work from Norway, Finland and Japan in
addition to the Baltic countries, suggesting
the development of new cultural and artistic
relationships. I was delighted that I was
able to accept the Museum of Decorative
Arts’ and Design invitation to join this year’s
jury, anticipating with pleasure the opportunity
to extend my own knowledge of
European textile art and to discover artists
whose work was previously unknown to me.
And so it has proved. At their best, exhibitions
like this both touch hearts and broaden
minds. I hope that everyone who visits
the show this summer is enchanted, provoked,
enriched, and surprised, in different
measure, by the work that we have brought
together.
Jennifer Harris, Dr.
Deputy Director,
The Whitworth Art Gallery,
University of Manchester
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