1st Tamworth Textile Triennial

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE While the previous Tamworth Biennial's have always attracted interest from artists and designer/ makers from other disciplines, there is approximately a 50/50 ratio of non-textile trained artists to textile trained. This 1st Trieannial questions the role of a future textile art and design education in Australian Universities, TAFE colleges and high schools. Are we in danger of losing the skills and traditions of textile making or are we seeing another shift in the blurred role of creative practice ¿ how significant is the textile discipline and how does it fit within the agenda of collaboration, cross-disciplinary practice and research in Australia? CONTRIBUTION The curatorial rationale for the 1st Tamworth Textile Triennial (Sensorial Loop) is to showcase to a public the changing ideas and professional craftsmanship associated with contemporary textile practice in Australia. The use of traditional and machine technologies, the inter-disciplinary profiles of practitioners, the trend of sustainable practice are research topics that challenge the perception of the discipline of textiles. There is blurring within the contemporary definition of creative practice and Sensorial Loop aims to capture that shift in this touring exhibition. As a curator in the discipline of textiles I am focused on promoting research in practice; in textile making, and in the diversity of ideas that creative people bring to the textile discipline. The selected artists are working with textiles in traditional and contemporary styles and they have capitalised on the temporal, haptic, familial and cultural aspects of textiles as demonstrated in Sensorial Loop.