throughout the past decade, textile-based artworks have found a new currency in the artworld. a proliferation of exhibitions dedicated to this long-overlooked medium has generated an intensification of critical theory, reviewing a variety of viewpoints: the role of feminal practitioners and their refusal of outdated, gendered expectations; the bias of craft versus fine art; the relation of textiles to cultural identity, socioeconomic codes, and societal coexistence, amongst countless others. many of these investigations are at the core of the practices of the artists featured in re-materialized: the stuff that matters, presenting a spectrum of textile-based vocabularies.

the specific, tactile sensuousness of textile work fulfills our desire for re-materialized experiences. now stuck somewhere between the physical and the virtual world, we are continuously witnessing the relentless digitalization of humanity, including sensory interactions. the more we realize the consequences of what is in fact dematerialization, the more urgency forms for resistance, together with the desire for a tangible, somatic connection to the world that surrounds us. if taken literally, we may begin to grasp the notion that nothing encompasses us more intimately through our bodily existence than cloth, one of the world’s most ancient cultural materials.