Summer of Textiles
This summer we are proud to be celebrating textile art in our ‘Summer of Textiles’ - a season of exhibitions, events and installations that are set to be bursting with stories, colours and textures.
Our headline exhibition Soft Power: Lives Told Through Textile Art, opens on 17 May. Curated by Professors Lesley Millar and Alice Kettle, the exhibition uses textiles as a form of portraiture: a vehicle to amplify hidden stories, challenge perceptions and celebrate shared human experiences.
This exhibition brings together stories of identity shaped by migration, hidden lives, and transformative personal narratives and includes:
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Alice Kettle: ‘Together’ featuring 500 hand-stitched drawings submitted by individuals, schools and organisations including AccessArt, the Black Swan Arts and Strode College
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Pippa Hetherington: ‘Cuttings 1820 – 2020' a collaborative piece created with Keiskamma Arts Project in South Africa
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Enam Gbewonyo: ‘Under the Skin of a Guild: Wake of Lost Souls’ is a dress that featured in the artists performance, unearthing the role of London’s Guildhall in slavery and colonisation.
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Ellen Sharples: Eastern Heads. An intricate silk-tapestry from RWA founder and pioneer of female-portraiture, Ellen Sharples.
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Lasmin Salmon: An unconventional, large-scale sculptural work consisting of meticulously constructed smaller textile forms.
Alongside this internationally renowned artist and RWA Academician Luke Jerram’s large-scale experimental drawing, Negotiated Space, will take over the exterior of the Grade II* Listed RWA Art Gallery before entering a window of the building and exploring the upper floor of the gallery.
This giant experimental 1km-long line drawing is made of 1000m of 20cm wide magenta ribbon and will alter its appearance with the changing wind and weather conditions.
Throughout the summer we will be host to more exhibitions and one-off events that explore textiles: Bristol Refugee Artists Collective ‘Sharing Love’ featuring a co-created dress from Dorcas Dress Project charity (DDP), Handstiched Heritage, a showcase of the work of Royal School of Needlework’s Apprentice and Future Tutor Alumni, Summer After-Hours Event with music from Diverse Artists Network and Connecting Threads from the RWA’s artists, the Academicians.
Alongside this, we have launched a series of Drawing School courses and workshops exploring the different uses of textiles. This includes Drawing Vintage Textiles (Fri 23 May), The Fabric of Life: Mixed Media Tapestry Weaving (starting Wed 4 June) and Drawing and Stitching with Paper and Fabric (Sat 28 and Sun 29 June).
Head to our What's On page to explore more.
Image credit Lasmin Salmon