Addressing textiles as a distinctive area of cultural practice and field of scholarly research, The Textile Reader introduces students to the key issues essential to the exploration of the textile from both a critical and a creative perspective. The second edition brings together lectures, catalogue essays, academic articles, fiction and poetry, as well as several articles available in English translation for the first time, to capture the diversity of voices informing textile studies today. Content is organized around the themes of touch, memory, structure, politics, and production plus a new section exploring the role of community. With 22 new contributors, this revised edition includes selected work from Maria Fusco, Ursula le Guin, Elaine Igoe, Faith Ringgold, and T'ai Smith. Extended introductions and annotated suggestions for further reading by the editor Jessica Hemmings make the second edition an invaluable resource to students of textiles, craft and material culture.

Addressing textiles as a distinctive area of cultural practice and field of scholarly research, The Textile Reader introduces students to the key issues essential to the exploration of the textile from both a critical and a creative perspective. The second edition brings together lectures, catalogue essays, academic articles, fiction and poetry, as well as several articles available in English translation for the first time, to capture the diversity of voices informing textile studies today. Content is organized around the themes of touch, memory, structure, politics, and production plus a new section exploring the role of community. With 22 new contributors, this revised edition includes selected work from Maria Fusco, Ursula le Guin, Elaine Igoe, Faith Ringgold, and T'ai Smith. Extended introductions and annotated suggestions for further reading by the editor Jessica Hemmings make the second edition an invaluable resource to students of textiles, craft and material culture.

Cultural Threads considers contemporary artists and designers who work at the intersection of cultures and use textiles as their vehicle. Ideas about belonging to multiple cultures, which can result in a sense of connection to everywhere and nowhere, are more pertinent to society today than ever. So too are the layers of history - often overlooked - behind the objects that make up our material world. The roots of postcolonial theory lie in literature and have, in the past, been communicated through dense academic jargon. Cultural Threads breaks with what can read as impenetrable rhetoric to show the rich visual diversity of craft and art that engages with multiple cultural influences. Many of these objects exist in an in-between world of their own, not wholly embraced by the establishments of art, nor functional objects in the conventional sense of craft. Cultural Threads is an exploration of contemporary textiles and their relationship with postcolonial culture. However, the postcolonial thinking examined here shares with craft an interest in the lived, rather than the purely theoretical, giving a very human account of the interactions in between craft and culture.

This beautiful and accessible book will deepen the understanding of anyone who loves textiles. It explores woven textiles thematically, through the work of contemporary artists and designers. Some make their art from unwoven threads, the raw material of which textiles are born. Others use digital technology so that elements of light, sound, and even motion are literally woven in the fabric. An excellent resource for everyone with an interest in contemporary woven textiles, this book features work by the following international selection of artists and designers: Gabriel Dawe, Ball-Nogues Studio, Susie MacMurray, Laura Thomas, Sue Lawty, Lauren Moriarty, Elana Herzog, Tamar Frank, Marianne Kemp, Dashing Tweeds, Hiroko Takeda, Christine Keller, Hilde Hauan Johnsen, Sarah Taylor, Astrid Krogh, Priti Veja, Salt, Ainsley Hillard, Philip Beesley, Maria Blaisse, Barbara Layne, Zane Berzina, Maggie Orth, Elaine Ng Yan Ling, Lucy McMullen, Philippa Brock, Grethe Sorensen, Christy Matson, Lars Preisser, Lise Frolund and Hanne Raffnsoe, Elin Igland, Alyce Santoro, Drahomira Hampl, Nadia-Anne Ricketts, Eleanor Pritchard, Aleksandra Gaca, Ismini Samanidou, Louise Bourgeois, Ane Henrikesen, Shane Waltener, Jeroen Vinken, Liz Williamson, Lucy Brown, Janine Antoni, Lia Cook, Petter Hellsing, Runa Carlsen, Wallace & Sewell, Ptolemy Mann, Missoni Home, ao for Gainsborough, NUNO Corporation, Norwegian Rain, Soukaina Aziz El Idrissi, Suzanne Tick, Travis Meinolf, and Anne Wilson.