New Exuberance: contemporary Australian textile design

WAH-WAH x Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, 2022, Australian merino wool as worn by Ramesh. Stylist Kirsty Barros. Photo Lexi Laphor. Courtesy of WAH-WAH Australia..jpg

JamFactory is excited to launch a new touring exhibition project bringing together contemporary design, art, and fashion through textiles.

Textile design today is a vibrant boundary-blurring creative field. By its very nature, it cross-pollinates. Moving through disciplines – graphic, furniture and product design, fashion and the visual arts – it manifests as surface patterning, material experimentation and transfiguration, storytelling and conceptual ideas.

Despite the hardships of recent years, Australian textile-based practices are flourishing. Makers are finding renewed confidence in community-driven interest, co-creation, and inclusivity. Collaborations in the fashion industry are on the increase, forged by creatives such as Romance Was Born, Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, Grace Lillian Lee and initiatives such as First Nations Fashion + Design. The skyrocketing visibility within First Nations practices is partly due to the passionate vision of new enterprises and reinforced by the meaningful and covetable textile designs being produced by artists in Top End and remote art centres and collectives. In line with these developments, and urgent sustainability concerns, the artisanal ethos is gaining agency.

New Exuberance celebrates the work of more than 30 textile creatives and includes 10 commissioned furniture pieces produced by designers associated with JamFactory to acknowledge the rich diversity of textile-based practices in contemporary art, design and fashion in this country now.

Featuring Bábbarra Women’s Centre, Frida Las Vegas, Grace Lillian Lee, Hannah Gartside, Ikuntji Artists, Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, Jemima Wyman, Kate Just, Lisa Waup X Verner, Nina Walton, Nixi Killick, Paul Mccann, Romance Was Born, The Social Studio X Among Atem X Romance Was Born, Tiwi Design, Vita Cochran, Wah-Wah Australia.

Curator Meryl Ryan

New Exuberance is a JamFactory touring exhibition. JamFactory is supported by the South Australian Government through the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. JamFactory is assisted by the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. JamFactory is also assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Image: WAH-WAH x Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, 2022, Australian merino wool as worn by Ramesh. Stylist Kirsty Barros. Photo Lexi Laphor. Courtesy of WAH-WAH Australia.