Textiles - Open Letter

An essential characteristic of textiles is their richly intertextual nature. Textiles:
Open Letter stems from an exhibition at Museum Abteiberg, Germany, plus an
extensive research project (2010 14) examining the place of textiles in the history of
art and culture, media, society and technology through various voices. Representing
traditions found in both applied and fine arts, textiles hover between formalism
and functionalism; as objects and techniques, they mediate between self and
world, between affect-driven and knowledge-driven processes of appropriation.
Functionally versatile, textiles are the fulcrum of an ensemble of activities, and
illustrate relations between subject and object, material and immaterial, artistic
and artisanal labor, and different cultures. The contributions in this book reflect
on this complex interplay, the attendant conflicts and antagonisms of power and
value, and the interaction of artistic processes within their contexts.