Textile Culture Net enriches its international collaboration with a new and improved online exhibition program, launching next week (4-8 December 2023).
30 November 2023
Textile Culture Net (TCN) is an international collaboration of textile organisations who open up their museum collections to the global public through shared exhibitions on Instagram. With the help of the European Union, TCN improved their online exhibition programme with additional content and a new visual identity and website. The new edition will launch on Instagram on 4 December.
Launching its fourth edition supported by the Creative Europe program, TCN’s new graphic identity has been designed by Studio Mut
Textile Culture Net (TCN) is an international network of four textile institutions: Central Museum of Textiles in ÅÂÂÂÂÂódź (Poland), Lottozero in Prato (Italy), TextielMuseum in Tilburg (The Netherlands) and CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textiles) in Hong Kong, who share the common ambition to develop new curatorial practices, engage younger and more diverse audiences and collaborate internationally.
TCN is based on the idea of sharing knowledge, experience and skills across geographical boundaries. The first network of its kind in the field of textile design and art, since 2020 it has been working as a laboratory of cultural diversity, which tests new curatorial approaches and ways of presenting and experiencing textile art and design, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by digital technology)
THE CURATORIAL TEAM
Gathering visions on textiles from diverse cultural contexts, each year TCN invites four guest curators to join its team of curators and develop a yearly program of online exhibitions.
This year the following have been welcomed on board: Caroline Kipp (US), Zoe Yeh (Taiwan), Bukola Oyebode (Nigeria / The Netherlands) and Hilde Skancke Pedersen (Norway/Sápmi).
TCN explores and expands the horizon of textile art and design, providing space for curators and artists from different backgrounds to create a dialogue on contemporary agendas such as sustainability, gender issues, postcolonialism, tradition and community as expressed through textile art.
THE EXHIBITION FORMAT
TCN’s online exhibition program follows a collaborative process and is the result of a collective vision: each guest curator proposes a theme for an online exhibition, to which other curators submit works that respond to it. Such online exhibitions draw on a digital format specifically conceived for Instagram platform, designed to be an agile and effective communication tool, capable of reaching out to new, younger and more diverse audiences.
The first exhibition of 2023/2024 is curated by Caroline Kipp. Titled “The Unseen Self”, it features contemporary artworks focused on identity and “self” which extend beyond traditional depictions or descriptions: As a shelter for the body, textiles are inextricably linked with the human lifecycle, imbuing them with layered meaning. Contemporary textile portraiture is an artistically diverse genre, rich in meaning and interpretation, where notions of individuality, identity, and “self” can be reinvented and redefined without conforming to one method, moment, or genre. (Caroline Kipp).
WHERE / WHEN
TCN’s exhibitions are published on the institutions’ and guest curators’ Instagram accounts, connected by the hashtag #TextileCultureNet.
The first exhibition curated by Caroline Kipp will be published on the 4th of December 2023.
TCN program runs till June 2024, with a new exhibition published every two months.
All the exhibitions held during TCN's four years of existence will be collected in a publication, released in both printed and digital format, designed by award-winning design office Studio Mut. The catalog will be launched in July 2024, during a public event held at Lottozero in Prato, Italy.
TCN’s fourth edition for 2023/2024 is co-funded by the European Union, within the framework of the prestigious Creative Europe program.
