Inside Radical Textiles: “a trojan horse” of activism
The Art Gallery of South Australia’s fashion-filled exhibition opened to the public over the weekend, and CityMag reckons it’s the hardest exhibition yet to resist touching the art.
Radical Textiles is full of layered tapestries and eye-catching embroidery but be warned some exhibits will test your willpower to adhere to the gallery’s strict “no touching” rule.
We’re proud to say we kept our hands to ourselves (as should you) but certainly picked up our own embroidery starter packs from the gift shop on the way out.
Radical Textiles is the latest exhibition at AGSA, with more than 150 works from private and public collections alongside new commissions that show how bold and revolutionary textiles can be.
Come on, tell us you don’t want to hold this hand in Sarah Contos’ 2016 The Long Kiss Goodbye.
Co-curator Rebecca Evans says she understands some visitors might find it difficult to see how textiles can be radical, or a form of activism.
“Textiles, embroidery, knitting, crochet and sewing perhaps conjure up ideas of traditional femininity and hobby groups,” she says.
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“Textiles however have been used for a long time in the advancement of political and social agendas.
“The connection between textiles and traditional values means that they are in many ways the perfect medium to subversively disseminate radical information, a trojan horse if you like.”
Hung behind the two as they talked us through the exhibition is a tapestry boasting “Women in Trade Unions”.
Further up the wall is an AFMEU tapestry celebrating women of metal, warning spectators “don’t be too polite girls” and exemplifying Rebecca’s point.
Exhibition co-curators (L–R) Curator of Contemporary Art Leigh Robb and Curator of Decorative Art and Design Rebecca Evans.
Rebecca and co-curator Leigh Robb started Radical Textiles looking at the work of British artist and designer William Morris, who in the late nineteenth century opposed the mass production of the Industrial Revolution by weaving tapestries using a manual loom and hand-dyed thread.
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Radical Textiles goes further to explore how artists have reclaimed traditional materials and techniques and revived them with feminist, queer and black lenses, including suffragette banners, First Nations weaving practice, the 90s AIDS Memorial Quilt Block and drag queen fashion in the exhibition.
“We’ve realized that the zeitgeist is actually around concepts of care, healing, connection and belonging in times of unrest, textiles tether us, and they offer a shared language for storytelling that we need to make sense of the world,” Leigh says.
Highlights of the exhibition include a room dedicated to high-end fashion, featuring garments by designers ranging from Vivienne Westwood and Paolo Sebastian to drag queen Art Simone and Adelaide’s kitsch queen Frida Las Vegas.
Stavroula Adameitis aka Frida Las Vegas at the preview of Radical Textiles.
Cheryl Bridgart is another local artist spotlighted in the fashion portion of the exhibition with a coat she designed.
Cheryl dresses in her wearable creations and is one of 40,000 contemporary artists internationally whose work has been digitalised and stored aboard a Lunar Codex space capsule.
At a preview of the show on Friday, Yankunytjatjara artist Zaachariaha Fielding (one-half of Australia’s 2024 Eurovision reps Electric Fields) showed off a couture gown from an upcoming collaboration with Australian fashion label Romance Was Born.
Zaachariaha Fielding in their yet-to-be-released couture gowns.
In more historic fashion displays, the exhibition includes a 1920s Chinese silk jacket and skirt owned by Gladys Sym Choon, the first woman in SA to incorporate a business and sell goods.
Gladys Sym Choon was a well-known Adelaide identity, and despite living at a time when prejudice against Chinese people was high, she ran a successful and popular business.
The “ever so tiny but powerful pink shorts” worn by Premier Don Dunstan in 1972 are another iconic textile on show at the exhibition which is running into 2025, the 50th anniversary of Dunstan’s Labor government decriminalising homosexuality in SA, the first Australian state to do so.
Adelaide blushed when then SA Premier Don Dunstan stepped out in these pink shorts in 1972. This picture: Mark Eckermann/AAP
Arts Minister Andrea Michaels says “Don Dunstan on the steps of Parliament in those iconic pink shorts perfectly captured the challenging of social norms and optimism of South Australia in the 1970s.”
“Whether you are a fashion lover or an avid embroiderer, Radical Textiles is an opportunity to experience the profound impact of textiles throughout modern history,” she says.
“This is an exciting and engaging exhibition that demonstrates the impact textiles and fashion have had to start conversations and capture pivotal moments in time.”
Radical Textiles is showing at the Art Gallery of South Australia from November 23 – March 30, 2025. It’s presented as part of the Adelaide Festival 2025 program. Tickets are available via AGSA’s website.