Transformative exhibition ‘Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles’ arriving in Leicester
Anna Perach, Venus, 2023. Hand-tufted Axminster yarn, artificial hair, beads, artificial silk, cast and blown glass, selvedge leather, metal wire on pine, birch ply and MDF table. Image by Andy Keate, courtesy of Gasworks London.
Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles
Attenborough Arts Centre
30 January – 3 May 2026
Attenborough Arts Centre presents Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles, an ambitious group exhibition exploring how artists are using textiles in surprising and radical ways. Illuminating the diverse roles textiles play in contemporary 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.
Featuring work created predominantly over the last decade by UK-based artists, Material Worlds highlights their deep awareness of textiles’ cultural history and a shared desire to challenge its traditional associations, testing the material’s expansive and subversive potential. The familiar fabric of everyday life is reimagined into the unexpected—the ordinary made extraordinary—to reflect on ideas of gender, identity, community, race, technology, and myth, demonstrating the medium’s potential to transform in the hands of different artists.
Artworks presented in Material Worlds include Phyllida Barlow’s Untitled: Canvasracks (2018–2019), an imposing yet anti-monumental sculpture made from multicoloured cotton canvas and concrete plinths; Yinka Shonibare’s Creatures of Mappa Mundi – Epiphargi (2018-2019) and Abstract Spiritual El (2024) both made with colourful Dutch wax printed cotton textile, patchwork, applique and embroidery. In the exhibition is also the work of Anna Perach’s Venus (2023), a body made from hand-tufted Axminister yarn, artificial hair and silk, beards, selvedge leather, cast and blown glass, and metal wire on pine laying in a table.
Phyllida Barlow, untitled: canvasracks; 2018-2019. Concrete, cotton-duck canvas, hardboard, paint, plastic, plywood, steel, tape, timber. Dimensions variable. Installation view, 'Phyllida Barlow. cul-de-sac', Royal Academy of Arts. London, UK, February 23 - June 23, 2019. © Phyllida Barlow Estate. Courtesy the Estate of Phyllida Barlow and Hauser & Wirth. Collection of Action 4 Equality Scotland. Photo: Damian Griffiths.
Artists featured in the exhibition include Caroline Achaintre, Jonathan Baldock, Phyllida Barlow, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Tenant of Culture, Alexandre da Cunha, Tonico Lemos Auad, Paul Maheke, Anna Perach, Yelena Popova, Yinka Shonibare, Rae-Yen Song, 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.”
The exhibition will also be shown alongside ‘A Decade of Exhibitions’ in Attenborough Arts Centre’s Salmon Gallery. In 2016, the centre opened its new purpose-built galleries, creating a new home for contemporary art in Leicester. Since then, they have welcomed thousands of visitors and hosted a diverse programme of exhibitions by local, national and international artists.
To mark this special milestone, they are looking back on both the programme, and also the memories and experiences of all those who have engaged with the range of artists and art we have presented and produced. A curated exhibition in the Salmon Gallery titled ‘A Decade of Exhibitions’ will look back at highlights from the past 10 years while inviting local communities to share your own stories and reflections.
Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles is curated by Caroline Achaintre with Hayward Gallery Touring.