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Friday, June 19, 2020, 11:01
Warp and weft of extraordinary times
By Elizabeth Kerr
Friday, June 19, 2020, 11:01 By Elizabeth Kerr

Kato Izumi’s embroidered sculptures at CHAT’s ongoing show featuring art inspired by textile ethos. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile (CHAT) is back after the COVID-19-induced closure with its newly extended spring program. CHAT’s first anniversary show features a range of curated events that promises to make textile art more accessible and relevant. 

Headlining the list is an exhibition entitled “Unconstrained Textiles: Stitching Methods, Crossing Ideas” which aims to explore the possibilities of textiles as an artistic medium. Seven prominent contemporary artists who are not necessarily textile specialists have created works inspired by the ethos of fabric such as color blending, texture and malleability. 

“I hope this exhibition can offer the opportunity to rediscover and revisit the unconstrained possibilities with which textiles have contributed to the artistic development metaphorically and physically,” says CHAT’s co-director and exhibition curator Takahashi Mizuki.

David Medalla’s installation, A Stitch in Time, is a constantly evolving piece that was started in 1968 by the Manila-born artist. Visitors are encouraged to embroider their own designs onto a long piece of plain white cotton cloth hung from the ceiling like a giant hammock. Spools with cotton threads dyed in LGBT rainbow colors also figure. The piece points to the artist’s personal mission to support gay rights and at the same time fosters community spirit as visitors sit down to add to the creation. 

Video installations by Kawita Vatanajyankur are equally mesmerizing. The Bangkok-based performance artist assumes the role of a weaving or knitting tool in each of her videos. Moving like a shuttle in a loom, and again like a crochet hook knitting a net, Vatanajyankur’s petite frame contorts her way through weaving machines, giving viewers a sense of the physical hardship textile workers all over the developing world are often subjected to. 

The colourful tapestries by Seoul’s Ham Kyungah could easily be mistaken for paintings. Making full use of the pearlescent qualities of silk thread, Ham’s pictures fuse disparate symbols of Korean life, to a hypnotic effect.

Fabrics, metal and stones have gone into Kato Izumi’s embroidered sculptures of bizarre, colourful creatures that could have walked out of the artist’s surrealist dreams. 

Asian-American artist Byron Kim’s minimalist canvases were inspired by natural colors. The fabrics are dyed the colors of different skin tones, representing the diverse population in the artist’s New York neighborhood.

Hong Kong’s Samson Young has contributed a cross-disciplinary work, The Immortals. Featuring neon-color T-shirts scrawled all over with writing and a video installation, the piece works as a mini musical, featuring footage of a Broadway performer singing on an elevated platform in an industrial area of New York. The line “We are the jesters of the ruling class,” set to a mournful tune and repeated continuously, gently pokes fun at leaders who seem more like comedians than politicians.

Izumi’s Untitled comprises a series of stone, silicon, flower and soil sculptures, laid out on an immaculate grass lawn. These strange figures with flowerbeds for bodies and unearthly faces carved in stone imbue the rooftop garden with a sense of calm and reflection. 

“I hope the exhibition can provoke conversation among visitors, and also be a place for internal dialogue,” says Mizuki. “We hope that CHAT can give everyone the cultural nutrition to survive this difficult period of our lives.”

If you go

Unconstrained Textiles: Stitching Methods, Crossing Ideas 

Curated by Takahashi Mizuki

Date: Until July 26

Venue: Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile 

The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan 

www.mill6chat.org


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