Saturday 18 February – Sunday 17 June 2012, University space

Through artworks from the ESCALA Collection, Unravelling Threads explores issues related to textile production by the indigenous people of the Andean region of South America.

While not all of the artworks in the exhibition stem directly from textiles or indigenous Andean heritage, they draw on a number of related ideas or threads.

The works of León Ferrari, Felipe Ehrenberg and Warmi, for example, resonate with the role of textiles as texts and repositories of memory. Those of Aruma-Sandra De Berduccy, Oswaldo Viteri, Esteban Álvarez, César paternosto and Alex Flemming share with contemporary indigenous textile practice the need to address the complexities of belonging to multiple cultural traditions.

Taking up another strand of Andean textile production, the works of María Ezcurra, Fernando Marquespenteado and Anna Maria Maiolino use contemporary fabrics and techniques to challenge gender definitions.

ESCALA Guest Curator, Valeria Paz Moscoso