Soft Activism - 4th and last TCN exhibition

Soft activism. Textile art as a healing force is the 4th and last online exhibition of 2023/2024 Textile Culture Net program, curated by Hilde Skancke Pedersen.

When textile is used in artworks carrying stringent political themes and addressing harsh realities and suffering, the supple and often fragile materials often pose a potent opposition to the frequently tragic origins of the ideas behind the textiles.
The exhibition seeks to convey several artists’ reactions to attacks, colonization and recolonization of vulnerable countries, peoples and cultures all over the world, also focusing on themes such as racism, persecution, the exotification and exploitation of peoples and cultures, totalitarianism, war - and solidarity and healing.

Featured artists: Mari Meen Halsøy, Ala Savashevich, Hussein Shikha, Labay Eyong, Bindweefsel project, Jakkai Siributr, Krystle Lemonias, 100 Flag Collective.

Each year Textile Culture Net invites guest curators to join its curatorial team proposing an exhibition theme to which other curators react with an artwork proposition. This dialogue shapes a dynamic exchange of views, methods and perspectives on textile.

TCN’s online exhibitions are published on the institutions’ and guest curators’ Instagram accounts, connected by the hashtag #TextileCultureNet.

TCN’s fourth edition for 2023/2024 is co-funded by the European Union, within the framework of the prestigious Creative Europe program.
Grant Agreement n°101099994.

Mari Meen Halsøy, WOUNDS, 2010, present and ongoing, tapestry. Photo credit: Mari Meen Halsøy