從紡織設計到當代藝術— 談香港六廠紡織文化藝術館「須藤玲子：『布』之作業」展

Abstract

In 2019, the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT) in Hong Kong held an unprecedented solo exhibition by famed textile designer Reiko Sudo, entitled “Sudo Reiko: Making NUNO Textiles” Exhibition. This special exhibition showcased the classic textile designs of Sudo, as well as the stories of Japanese traditions and the local textile industry embedded in Sudo’s textiles from multiple perspectives, such as textile design, contemporary art, and creative media. The aims of this exhibition commentary are to analyze the characteristics of this special exhibition and how it responds to the contemporary concerns of museum studies and textile studies, and to provide relevant suggestions. Under the theme of “weaving the past and present”, this essay is divided into five topics: textiles and museums, from textile design to contemporary art, display and interactivity of textiles, textiles and place, and rethinking textile special exhibitions. The author argues that adopting a cross-disciplinary approach to the curation of textile exhibitions encourages curators, artists, and audiences to rediscover the diversified meanings of textile collections. For exhibitions related to the textile industry, a more inclusive narrative can be achieved by including the voices of local textile workers. There is increasing interest in the academic discussion of textiles and museums in Europe and America. However, such discussions in Asia have been limited. It is expected that this essay will serve to diversify the current academic discussions in the fields of textile and cultural studies and museum studies by providing a case study from Hong Kong and to promote and raise awareness of textile curation among museum professionals and researchers in Hong Kong and Asia.