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Resistance
Resistance: n. 1. The act or power of resisting, opposing, or withstanding.
Textiles have long been used to unite communities in resisting established structures of control and to push for social change. Textiles are more than ‘soft power’, however: they sit at the root of social and civic groups and agitate for progress and propagate key ideologies. Textiles move with ease between private and public spaces and unite people in their inception, making and use. Textiles relating to activist groups are overtly radical in their nature, having been designed and made in the cause social change within established social and political structures.
This exhibition showcases textile objects made by artists and activists with the intent to resist; the refusal to comply to specific prevailing social, and similar, conditions. These objects largely focus on textiles associated with two major movements – the Australian trade labour and women’s rights movements – over the last 130 years. Both colour and text are key to the textiles utilised by these groups, colour being highly symbolic and aspirational, and text co-opted to demand attention and proclaim ideology. The combination of colour and text in ‘resistance textiles’ works in synergistically to disseminate key messaging while ensuring a sense of collective solidarity.
Words by Rebecca Evans