Threads of Life – Textiles in Medicine and the Arts
Angewandte
Interdisciplinary Lab
Although textiles have been indispensable to medicine since time immemorial, their role
in this context has been understudied so far. From the surgical thread, wound dressings, wipes, pads, and protective clothing
to the hospital bed, the practices of healing are unimaginable without them. But the relationship between textiles in the
arts, wellbeing and health is much broader. It includes, but is not restricted to, the use of such techniques as knitting,
crocheting, weaving or braiding in the development of cardiovascular grafts or surgical meshes.
The
use of textiles is also ambivalent. They have found use in psychiatric institutions for the bodily restraint of patients,
but patients also used them for designing their environment and creating body wrappings as survival strategies. Textiles can
also be a source of ill-health: Beyond the addition of harmful substances during their production, textiles have been used
in fashion for centuries to shape, deform and discipline the body according to ideals of beauty. Practitioners from the fields
visual arts and artistic research reflect on this complicated relationship in manifold ways. Artists use fabrics to evoke
the vulnerability of the human body, its ongoing decay and imminent death, and also to highlight the complexity of interhuman
relationships. They draw attention to (self-)care, understanding the human anatomy, perceiving one’s own corporeality, and
to the ways in which textiles can become an existential embodiment. Beyond the metaphorical “Threads of Life”, suturing connects
the craft of surgery with that of tailoring. The exhibition spotlights the multifaceted relationships between textiles, medicine
and the arts. It brings historical objects and contemporary artistic positions into a dialogue that generates productive tensions.
Artists:
Sonja Bäumel, Pascale Maxime Ballieul, Camille Borchert, Ida Flora Frantal, Raja Goltz,
Barbara Graf, Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond, Elizabeth McGlynn, Ute Neuber, Katharina Sabernig, Hannah Schwab, Yuliia Strykovska,
Leo Ruben Enosch Zellweger
Curatorial team:
Monika Ankele (Medical University of Vienna),
Barbara Graf (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Katrin Pilz (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital History, Vienna), Monika
Pietrzak-Franger (University of Vienna), Barbara Putz-Plecko (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Katharina Sabernig (University
of Applied Arts Vienna), Georg Vasold (University of Vienna).
The curatorial team is part of the transdisciplinary working
group History of Medicine and Medical/Health Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Save the Date:
The exhibition will be accompanied by an interdisciplinary conference "Threads of Life – Textiles in Medicine and the Arts"
on 20 Jun 2023, 10:00–18:30
Threads of Life – Textiles in Medicine and the Arts
Angewandte
Interdisciplinary Lab
Events
Opening
13. June 2023 - 18:00
Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab, Otto
Wagner-Postsparkasse, 1010 Wien
Duration
14. June 2023 - 14. July
2023
Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab, Otto Wagner-Postsparkasse, 1010 Wien
