‘A cliché-busting project, which pushes past easy assumptions about gender and sexuality’ 

The Arts Society Magazine

Playful and provocative, this exhibition explores how clothes and textiles conceal, reveal and seduce through the lenses of art, design, fashion, film and dance.

Featuring works by a diverse range of international contemporary artists, Fabric: Touch & Identity demonstrates how artists and designers have employed fabric to express and subvert societal expectations, explore sexuality and personal identities, and investigate the physical sensations and engagements that we make with fabric. The exhibition includes work by: Beverly Ayling-Smith, Annie Bascoul, Maxine Bristow, Nigel Hurlstone, Raisa Kabir, Alice Kettle, Susie MacMurray, Cathy de Monchaux, Ruta Naujalyte, Suzumi Noda, Liz Rideal, Nina Saunders, Alison Watt, Vivenne Westwood and Bob White, as well as the new installation Ogi no mai / Japanese Fanfare by Reiko Sudo and Adrien Gardère. Follow the digital link to look at many of these works and hear from the artists themselves.

[cv-button]Discover the exhibition digitally[/cv-button]

Curated with Professor Alice Kettle (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Professor Lesley Millar (University for the Creative Arts) this exhibition is developed from the three year research project ‘The Erotic Cloth’, the first outcome of which has been the book The Erotic Cloth (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).

Banner image: Ogi no mai / Japanese Fanfare, 2020, Textiles by Reiko Sudo of Nuno corporation, Scenography by Adrien Gardère of Studio Adrien Gardère, Production by Kazuhiro Ueno of Nuno corporation, Photograph by Jamie Woodley

Right: Annie Bascoul, Vivre et rêver… en dentelle, 2015, Photograph by Jamie Woodley