The textile and dress exhibitions keep on coming with several around the country in the next couple of months and more to come. (Pardon the cliche, but watch this space.) Thanks to those of you who have sent in details of what your organisation or gallery is hosting.
In Auckland, there’s a bit of time left to get to Newmarket’s Railway Street Studios to see Anna Crichton’s Mother India – Embroidered Tales March/April 2022. Crichton’s hand stitched and beaded embroideries and wood prints reflect her experience working with local craftspeople during a 2018 residency in Varanesi and her response to social issues in rural India. The exhibition closes 5 April, with an artist talk on Saturday 2 April, 1pm.
Meanwhile, from 2 April, Objectspace’s courtyard plinth will feature Lapping at Your Door, ‘an outdoor installation incorporating her signature fabric banners’, architecture and canvas in tandem with a nod to 1920s architect and designer Eileen Gray. Plenty of time to see this one, it’s up for the next year.
https://www.objectspace.org.nz/exhibitions/lapping-at-your-door/
Taranaki: Over the past couple of years, Areez Katki has been establishing a reputation as one of the big names of local textiles with his precise embroideries reflecting on ‘family memories, domesticity and sexuality’, and his Persian-Zoroastrian culture. At the Govett-Brewster in New Plymouth, his work is being exhibited with Khadim Ali’s collaborative, large-scale works made with women in Afghanistan, as discussed with RNZ recently. There is No Other Home But This runs until mid-June – great pictures on the Govett-Brewster website.
https://govettbrewster.com/exhibitions/there-is-no-other-home-but-this
Further south again, Nelson audiences have a month to view the works in the annual Changing Threads Contemporary NZ Textile Fibre Art Awards. This is the twelfth year the Arts Council Nelson has presented this showcase for fibre artists to broadly explore the medium; this year nearly 130 artists entered, with 49 works being selected for exhibition.
You can check out the award winners and exhibition videos on the Changing Threads website: http://www.acn.org.nz/changing-threads.html
Nelson’s arts community is currently offering another textile-related award, this time in association with Broadgreen Historic House’s Secret Lies Lives of Dresses exhibition. This exhibition features garments with no provenance, so the organisers have selected a couple of particularly charming 1950s frocks and invite writers to configure a provenance for them. The generous and imaginative prize packages include cash, book vouchers, and something textile-related, and the competition’s being judged by Anne Kennedy, author of, among other things, The Last Days of the National Costume (2013), and Rachael King. Competition closes on 30 April, the details are here: https://www.secretlivesshortstorycomp.nz/
Finally, Dunedin’s at it again too. At Blue Oyster art project space, Zoe Thompson-Moore’s french knitting snakes through the gallery as part of the Idle Hands exhibition until 16 April; http://www.blueoyster.org.nz/exhibitions/dulce-lamarca-kate-mitchell-zoe-thompson-moore/ while Toitu has just opened a new exhibition of that perennial favourite, the wedding dress (and suits). The Big Day puts the spotlight on some of the dresses and images in its collection to offer a snapshot of Otago nuptials since the mid-19th century. http://www.toituosm.com/whats-on/exhibitions/the-big-day
The Toitu exhibition is one of several exhibitions in the south that we’ll be featuring online, conscious as we are that several of them would have been handy for those travelling to Oamaru if the symposium had gone ahead. But more on that in the next post. Meanwhile, if you have a dress or fibre exhibition that you’d like to reach a wider audience,we’re always keen to hear about things to add to the next wrap-up.