Masae Bamba, Flame, 2007. Silk, stone, shibori dyeing. All images courtesy ‘Cloth and Culture Now’ ed Lesley Millar (University College for the Creative Arts. 2007).

Exhibition Preview - Cloth and Culture Now at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts until June 1 2008.

A cutting edge textiles exhibition has opened at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

Cloth and Culture Now has been curated by Lesley Millar, Professor of Textile Culture at the University College for the Creative Arts at Epsom, and features new work by 35 artists from Estonia, Finland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania and Britain.

The work reflects the history of textile production in the artists’ respective countries and also how they have been influenced by cultures that transcend geographical borders.

Millar has assembled stunning works that use traditional materials and techniques like knitting and embroidery alongside an exploration of new methods. The show includes architectural installations, performance work and video, as well as narrative and decorative based textiles.

Michael Brennand-Wood, Stars Underfoot - The Slow Reveal. 2007. Embroidery, fabric, glass, wire on painted wood panel.

“The 35 artists in the exhibition represent the most exciting contemporary textiles practitioners in each of their countries,” said Professor Millar. “The artists are using textile history to investigate the importance of specific cultural identity and trans-cultural influences in their work.”

Japanese artists Masae Bamba and Hideaki Kizaki have produced work that mixes the traditional craft practices of shibori and persimmon dyeing with cross-culture influences from the 1960s onwards.

Another Japanese practitioner, Jun Mitsuhashi, was inspired by the harmony and contrast, light and shade, and the pleasure of subtlety and exaggeration in Japanese culture to create decorative textiles in traditional ways.

Contemporary textiles practice in Britain that draws upon textile tradition, referring to it rather than embodying it, is commonly seen in the context of contemporary Western fine art.

British artists include Sue Lawty, artist in residence 2006 at the Victoria and Albert Museum and responsible for initiating the recently launched internet blog, Beach Project, and Michael Brennand-Wood.

‘Britishness’ is strongly expressed through Freddie Robbins, who believes her cultural roots are expressed through her sense of humour, irony and subversion as well as her use of materials – predominantly wool and knitting.

Silja Puranen, Without Safety Net. 2007. Fabric paint, transfer photograph, soft pastel and painting on found textile/needlepoint work on canvas.

Textiles have long served as an expression of local and national identity in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. These countries have a strong tradition in textiles, and whilst practitioners like Mare Kelpman and Peteris Sidars are keen to preserve ‘the language of cloth’, there is also an emerging contemporary movement playing with new ideas and forms.

Many influences to these three countries have come from Finland, where textile production has been central to the economy during the last 50 years. Many Finnish homes still had working looms until very recently and contemporary artists such as Helena Hietanen and Agneta Hobin have reworked these traditions with a modern twist.

The exhibition will move to the Whitworth Gallery, University of Manchester, in the autumn, before travelling to other participating countries.

Curator Lesley Millar has been a practising weaver with her own studio since 1975. She has work in the permanent collections of the Crafts Council and Arts Council England, South East, and is listed on the Crafts Council Index of Selected Makers. She has exhibited in the UK, Europe, USA and Japan.

This is an exhibition preview - if you have been to see the show, why not let us know what you think?