Tapestries of History: Unravel at Barbican
Barbican's latest exhibition shines a light on the political power of textiles...
By
Rhea Mathur
April 11, 2024
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
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The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
In ‘Bearing Witness’, a room of Barbican’s latest exhibition lie two tapestries, one of which is hand-crafted by those grieving the loss of a seventeen-year-old boy, Obed Jadeth Rosano Jahen López. Jahen was brutally assassinated in Panama City and his aunts together handstitched the image of his body onto the tapestry. Teresa Margolles, in her work, focuses on this loss, mourning and grief, collaborating with those who have suffered an unjust loss using stitching and designing tapestries as a method of storing memories and promising remembrance. López’s tapestry sits next to the patchwork created by the Harlem Needle Arts, a New York-based art institute, that reflects on the unconstitutional police brutality that killed Eric Garner.
In the exhibition, Unravel - The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican harnesses the power of the global community to outline stitching, sewing and patchwork as methods of collecting, assembling and storing memories that are often neglected and eventually forgotten. With the help of these textiles and the communities that designed them, the exhibition brings attention to the textiles that surround us and the histories they uncover. It also brings together a range of methods of creating textiles including weaving, braiding, beading and knotting, focusing on an art form that commonly hides within plain sight. By showcasing over a hundred different works of art created by fifty international artists, this exhibition in the heart of London is a lesson across histories of war, ecology and togetherness.
Divided into several parts in the two-storey Barbican Art Gallery, audiences are first invited to go up the staircase at the entrance, leading them to the first room titled ‘Subversive Stitch’. This is one of the most important rooms in the exhibition and brings together works by a whole host of international artists: Mounira Al Solh from Lebanon, Ghada Amer from Egypt, Feliciano Centurión from Paraguay, Judy Chicago from the USA, Nicholas Hlobo from South Africa, and the UK’s Tracey Emin. With their varied backgrounds and ethnicities, the pieces in this room radicalise the often undermined form of stitching, reclaiming it as a tool to highlight acts of violence against multiple communities.
The phrase ‘subversive stitch’ has been borrowed from the art historian Rozsika Parker’s book of the same title. Published in 1984, Parker discusses the history of embroidery, a craft that was initially genderless, but soon after became a measure of femininity. In the exhibition, the six artists come together to reclaim the act of stitching as a genderless activity that can materialise histories. This title also speaks directly to the name of the exhibition and the evident contradiction in the use of the word ‘unravel’ in regard to textiles. Judy Chicago’s Birth Tear/Tear (1982) uses embroidery on silk to address centuries of inequality between the complexities of male brushstrokes and female needlework. Designed by Chicago, the work was embroidered by Jane Gaddie Thompson and paints the image of a woman giving birth, with the design focusing on shades of red and pink, the woman’s vagina almost tearing her apart from the centre. Chicago’s design and Thompson’s embroidery bring to life the laborious and excruciating process often reduced to a woman’s chore, much like embroidery. The ambiguity in the image, however, allows for diverse interpretations and focuses on the multiple ways society understands childbirth.
On the 10th of April, this exhibition will also situate itself outside the walls of the gallery through Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (2024). Enveloping the well-known Brutalist architecture of the Barbican, nearly two thousand square metres of pink and purple woven cloth will be fitted into the edges of the building. The hand-sewn work will be embroidered with batakaris, a men’s garment in West Africa, that is often preserved and was acquired from a number of communities by the artist. With his work, the artist aims to focus on the lineage that textiles store within them, passed down through families, holding onto and collecting memories.
While the exhibition focuses on the trauma created through violence and injustice, surprisingly the Barbican Centre recently withdrew from hosting The Shoah after Gaza, a lecture by the Indian writer, Pankaj Mishra for The London Review of Books. Due to this withdrawal and act of censorship by the Barbican, two quilts crafted by Loretta Pettway were rescinded by the collectors - Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Their act of protest against the Barbican’s decision has resulted in the creation of a blank, white space in the room titled Fabric of Everyday Life. A plaque in the space reads that the quilts have been withdrawn as an “act of solidarity with Palestine”. Here, even the absence of the quilts highlights the theme of solidarity with those who suffer unjust atrocities and the quilts again, become tools of historical documentation.
This exhibition slowly unravels the historical threadwork that goes into the suppression of emotions of diverse communities. One by one, it helps the artists bring forward the trauma caused by injustices they faced and allows the audience a chance to honour their craft and their history. Even the withdrawal of the quilts here highlights a section of our current and ongoing history, one that cannot be forgotten.
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art is showing at Barbican until 26th May.
