Hayward Gallery Touring will present Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles, an ambitious group exhibition exploring how contemporary artists are using textiles in surprising and radical ways. Illuminating the diverse roles textiles play in artistic practice, the exhibition brings together artists who take the intimate and domestic quality of textiles and transform them into theatrical, bold, unsettling and humorous artworks that inspire, challenge and offer new ways of thinking.

Sitting at the heart of the Southbank Centre, the nation’s engine of creativity, Hayward Gallery Touring aims to create cultural experiences with a bold and imaginative touring programme across the UK. Following in the footsteps of several critically-acclaimed exhibitions from Hayward Gallery Touring this year alone, Material Worlds will begin its tour in October at the Mead Gallery at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry.

Spanning work made over the last ten years by artists living or working in the UK, Material Worlds features 15 artists who share a deep awareness of the cultural history of textiles, alongside a desire to subvert these stereotypes and test their expansive potential as a material for contemporary art. The familiar, material stuff of everyday life is transformed into the unexpected - the ordinary is made extraordinary - to explore ideas of the body, identity, gender, race, heritage, myth and folklore; demonstrating the medium’s potential to transform in the hands of different artists.

Artworks presented in Material Worlds will include Phyllida Barlow’s Untitled: Canvasracks (2018–2019), an imposing yet anti-monumental sculpture made from multicoloured cotton canvas and concrete plinths; Holly Hendry’s kinetic sculpture Slacker (2019) which uses synthetic materials, fabrics, and aggregates of reused plastics to create a ‘skin’ that rotates, inspired by the historical Jacquard loom; to Paloma Proudfoot’s The Mannequins Reply (2023), a ceramic assemblage with textile details informed by the artist's background in clothes making and pattern cutting.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Caroline Achaintre, Larry Achiampong, Jonathan Baldock, Phyllida Barlow, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Alexandre da Cunha, Holly Hendry, Tonico Lemos Auad, Paul Maheke, Anna Perach, Yelena Popova, Paloma Proudfoot, Yinka Shonibare, Rae-Yen Song, Tenant of Culture and Zadie Xa.

Caroline Achaintre, Curator of Material Worlds, says: “It has been a great pleasure to develop and curate Material Worlds alongside the Hayward Gallery Touring team. I wanted the exhibition to emphasise the transition from something quite everyday, domestic, and supposedly unspectacular, into the creation of fantastical and extraordinary works, worlds, and visions. It has been an enriching experience to encounter such a diverse realm of artists and to create this exhibition featuring affecting pieces by both upcoming and established artists from different generations.”

Brian Cass, Senior Curator of Hayward Gallery Touring, says: “Bringing together a diverse range of artists whose work is imaginatively redefining how textiles are being used in contemporary art, Material Worlds is an expansive exhibition exploring how simple everyday materials are being used to surprise and provoke, creating worlds and telling stories ranging from the personal to the cosmic. We are proud to be the UK’s largest touring contemporary art organisation with exhibitions seen by up to half a million people each year. I’m very excited to be working with our exhibition partners on this project and seeing how the exhibition will transform for each gallery and museum along the tour.”

Sarah Shalgosky, Principal Curator at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Arts Centre, says: “As part of the celebration of Warwick Arts Centre's 50^th anniversary, we are very pleased to launch Material Worlds. The exhibition connects to our history of showcasing the transformative power of artists in re-making the everyday into a powerful and inspiring experience. Our audiences are also our partners and they have joined us in curating and delivering a powerful programme this autumn that includes a new textile work, made by local communities working with artist Julia McConnell, that will go on display in November 2024.”

Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles is curated by Caroline Achaintre with Hayward Gallery Touring.

At the Mead Gallery, the exhibition will be complemented by a public programme that includes artist talks and an evening of artist performances to celebrate the Warwick Arts Centre’s 50th birthday. Further details on the public programme at the Mead Gallery and other exhibition partners will be announced later this year.