Soft Power, lives told through textile art is currently on in the UK at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.
This exhibition has been curated by Professors Alice Kettle and Lesley Millar and relates the stories of people through textiles. Sometimes those stories are intimate and closely bound to an individual, sometimes they are broader and wide-ranging, reflecting the things that affect whole societies and global populations.
Amongst the pieces and artists on show are:
- Alice Kettle: ‘Together’ featuring 500 hand-stitched drawings submitted by individuals, schools and organisations including AccessArt, the Black Swan Arts and Strode College
- Pippa Hetherington: ‘Cuttings 1820 – 2020′ a collaborative piece created with Keiskamma Arts Project in South Africa
- Enam Gbewonyo: ‘Under the Skin of a Guild: Wake of Lost Souls’ is a dress that featured in the artist’s performance, unearthing the role of London’s Guildhall in slavery and colonisation.
- Ellen Sharples: Eastern Heads. An intricate silk-tapestry from RWA founder and pioneer of female-portraiture, Ellen Sharples.
- Lasmin Salmon: An unconventional, large-scale sculptural work consisting of meticulously constructed smaller textile forms.