Soft Power

Textile art and political power

Soft Power celebrates the ability of textiles to store and communicate a multiplicity of (hi)stories that act as a disruptive force against dominant social and cultural narratives. The political entanglements inherent to the medium demonstrate the power of textile art to move people, things, stories, and ideas in and out of visibility. Soft Power does not focus solely on textiles as hand-crafted or industrially-fabricated objects, but understands them as being a part of systems. This includes the webs of production and trade that continue to connect textiles and people across the globe as well as the histories, cartographies, cosmologies and rituals that unfold around fabrics.

With works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Caroline Achaintre, El Anatsui, Leonor Antunes, Rufina Bazlova, Edith Dekyndt, Gee's Bend Quiltmakers, William Kentridge, Joanna Louca, Rosemary Mayer, Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, Sandra Mujinga, Otobong Nkanga, Willem de Rooij, Gabriele Stoetzer, Sung Tieu, Rosemarie Trockel, Johanna Unzueta, Hamid Zenati a. o.