On the Christmas Bank Holiday Monday we took the train into Manchester to visit the Whitworth. It was good to get out of the house and take in a little mental stimulation.

Manchester at one time was Cottonopolis, the capital of the once dominant British cotton industry. Reflecting this, the Whitworth has an important collection of textiles. Appropriately, then the main exhibition currently showing in the Gallery, Art_Textiles “does what it says on the tin” and features works created from textiles.

The exhibition website tells us that

The status of textiles as an art medium is highly ambivalent. Traditionally, they have been situated on the margins, in a borderland between art and craft.

As a medium textile is often used by female artists, which probably part of the reason why textile art is “situated on the margins” – an interesting topic for a thesis, I’m sure someone must…