TRANSITION AND INFLUENCE: the interface between cloth and culture

'Cloth is the universal free element. It doesn’t have to explain itself. It performs.'*

The emergence of what could be considered ‘global’ artistic practice has not automatically created cross-cultural understanding. However, it seems that cloth provides a continuous undercurrent between cultures; it is both common to all cultures and culture-specific. Textile has a social, political and utilitarian history, moving across and between continents and peoples. It is a shared activity that stirs both conscious and unconscious memory. It is a language connecting practitioners in different cultures, as evidenced in their approaches and practice.

The Transition and Influence website sets out to disseminate projects highlighting the best and most exciting contemporary textile practice in the UK, Japan, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, with particular reference to textile as a both a culture specific and trans-cultural language.

These projects have been initiated by Lesley Millar through the University College for the Creative Arts, the most recent being Cloth & Culture NOW, a major publication and exhibition due which is currently showing at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts Norwich until 1st June 2008. The exhibition will then transfer to the Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester, 17th September – 14th December 2008. For more information about Cloth & Culture NOW, other projects and associated publications, click on the tool bar above.

*Tom Lubbock 'The secret life of cloth' The Independent 18/6/02

NEWS

A new project CULTEX

a collaboration between Japanese and Norwegian textile artists.
For more information click here

HAPTIC FOCUS:
April – September, England and Scotland

Memory and Touch: an exploration of textural communication  
Conference
May 7th
RIBA, London

HAPTIC – awakening the senses
Exhibition
May 7th – June 7th
RIBA Galleries, London & The Lighthouse, Glasgow
18th June – 29th September

MAKE-DO it HAPTIC - design projects by Masayo Ave 1990-2008
Exhibition
April 3rd – May 12th
The Gallery, University College for the Creative Arts Epsom

For further information on all of the Haptic Focus events please visit the
news page