Event Details
Detail of 'Vida en Nuestra Población / Life in Our Poor Neighbourhood', Top Left corner (Photo: Martin Melaugh) |
| Exhibition and associated activities: | Threads of Empowerment: Conflict Textiles’ International Journey |
| Description: | When words are not enough to express our lived experiences, stitching and sewing emerge as textile language.
Through textile narrative, people from countries across the world have communicated their experiences in relation to violence and conflict, human rights violations, poverty, oppression and environmental issues. The result is a visual record and a form of artistic expression based on personal, and often very poignant testimonies.
The Ulster Museum has been collaborating with Conflict Textiles since 2017, drawing on their collection of over 400 documented arpilleras, quilts and wall hangings. Arpilleras (pronounced 'ar-pee-air-ahs') are appliquéd picture textiles, handsewn from scraps of materials onto a hessian backing. They originated in Chile during the Pinochet regime (1973-1990), when women came together to voice their experiences of the violence and repression of the dictatorship. The majority, but not all, of the makers are women.
From Chile but now based in Northern Ireland, Roberta Bacic, Collector and Curator of Conflict Textiles, has developed this collection and used it internationally to highlight the issues and people it represents. Beginning with the exhibition The Art of Survival: International and Irish Quilts in Derry/Londonderry in 2008, the Conflict Textiles collection has since been exhibited around the world, empowering people to share their story.
On International Human Rights Day 2022, National Museums NI marked a landmark acquisition of 14 pieces from the Conflict Textiles collection. These are the pieces that were acquired at the time. |
| Commissioned by: | Ulster Museum and Conflict Textiles |
| Date(s): | 21st June 2024 - 31st March 2025 |
| Venue: | Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Botanic Gardens, Belfast BT9 5AB, Northern Ireland |
| Curator: | Conflict Textiles curator Roberta Bacic |
| Facilitator: | Karen Logan and Kim Mawhinney, Ulster Museum senior curators |
| Outcome: | |
