23 October 2021 – 12 February 2022
Fairfield City Museum & Gallery | Guest Curator

In the fibre of her being


Atong Atem, Crossing Threads®, Monika Cvitanovic Zaper, Julia Gutman, Nadia Hernández, Kate Just, Paula do Prado, Linda Sok, and the Tjanpi Desert Weavers


In the fibre of her being contemplated the role of women as anonymous carriers and preservers of heritage, bringing together a group of artists who use textile-based practices as a mechanism to write their personal and collective histories. With fibre as their dialect, these artists spoke to legacies of womanhood and female subjectivity, displacement and diaspora, resilience and healing.

Textiles have long been acutely linked to storytelling, being used by centuries of women across a vast expanse of diverse cultures, geographies, and languages as a mode of communication. The transference and application of intergenerational knowledge and the sharing of matrilineal narratives between women underpinned the exhibition. By engaging with their familial and gendered lineages, the artists navigated their cultural and hybridised identities, and by extension their sense of self.

The exhibition considered the long standing and interwoven relationship between women and textiles, acknowledging that these practices were once historically relegated as ‘women’s work’ or a form of domesticated craft. This division between the sexes allowed textiles to emerge as a way for women to communicate their experiences and to forge strong links between female practitioners, leading to the creation of cultural communities through liberation, empowerment, and repossession of the medium.


Through fibre-based approaches, twelve artists spoke to their personal and collective histories. With five new commissions, the exhibition was curated to exemplify a broad cross-section of CALD backgrounds representing Western Sydney audiences where the gallery is situated and Australia more broadly. The exhibition represented a breadth of practice, featuring artists across career stages, cultures, geographies, and generations.


This exhibition received a Museums & Galleries of NSW’s IMAGinE Award in 2022, was reviewed in The Saturday Paper, and was previewed in Art Guide Australia.


Awards


Museums & Galleries of NSW:
2022 IMAGinE Award

The IMAGinE Awards is an annual event hosted by M&G NSW to highlight the resilience, innovation and creativity of museums, galleries and Aboriginal cultural centres.


Category: Exhibition Projects – Galleries


Press


Preview : Art Guide Australia

September/October 2021 Issue
Preview written by Briony Downes

Review : The Saturday Paper

’Weaving resistance’ | November 13, 2021
Review written by Neha Kale