Due to the impact of COVID on our team and the many talented speakers in our programme, we have decided to postpone the Threads: Contemporary Art & Textiles Symposium. We have no intention of cancelling this event and will be back with a new date soon.

Hosted by The Dowse Art Museum, this online symposium will unravel the seam between textiles and contemporary art. Offering curated presentations from a range of influential local and international textiles figures, including iconic fashion designer Kate Sylvester, glittering New Zealand artist Reuben Paterson and Azerbaijani internationally-recognised contemporary visual artist, Faig Ahmed.

This event is part of Threads Textile Festival, which is part of Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts.

PROGRAMME | Threads: Contemporary Art & Textiles Symposium

9.45am – 10am | WELCOME

Karl Chitham (Ngā Puhi, Te Uriroroi), Director, The Dowse Art Museum

10am – 11am | KEYNOTE LECTURE

Reuben Paterson chats with Karl Chitham about the use of kōwhaiwhai in his collaboration with Dilana Rugs and many other textile moments from his practice and career.

Reuben Paterson (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi), Artist

Karl Chitham (Ngā Puhi, Te Uriroroi), Director, The Dowse Art Museum

11am – 12pm | ART HISTORY FOCUS SESSION

Henderson and Fomison: the conscious use of material versus use, dictated by need

Linda Waters, Conservator Paintings, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Fiji Girmit (the indentured labour system) and Indo-Fijian craft practices

Quishile Charan, 2022 Te Whare Hēra International Artist in Residence

Exploration of social histories through textile art

Dr. Bronwyn Lloyd, 2021 Bumhardt Curator

Kohna Zari Ko – online mending initiative

Zoe Black (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Hine, Pākehā), Deputy Director, Objectspace

12pm – 12.30pm | INDUSTRY LECTURE

Woolchemy: Transforming an underutilized New Zealand fibre

Derelee Potroz-Smith, CEO & Co-Founder, Woolchemy

12.30pm – 1PM | BREAK

1pm – 2pm | ARTIST IN FOCUS SESSION

Looking to the materials in the local landscape as a way to understand place

Daegan Wells, Artist, Southland

The art of keeping it light: using humour and whakapapa to bring mauri to my quilts

Ron Te Kawa (Ngāti Porou), Artist, Woodville

How I use fabric to articulate my experience of living between Korea and New Zealand and the intangible experience of living with a language barrier

Emerita Baik, Artist, Wellington

2pm – 3pm | ART & FASHION

Kate Sylvester speaks with Chelsea Nichols about her collaborations with Michael Parekōwhai, Marcel Duchamp and Frances Hodgkins

Kate Sylvester, Designer & Director, Kate Sylvester

Dr. Chelsea Nichols, Senior Curator, The Dowse Art Museum

3pm – 4pm | KEYNOTE LECTURE

Faig Ahmed, internationally-recognised artist from Baku, Azerbaijan talks to curator Leslee Michelsen about reimagining ancient carpet crafts into contemporary sculptural works of art

Faig Ahmed, Artist, Azerbaijan

Dr. Leslee Michelsen, Curator of Collections & Exhibitions, Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design, Honolulu