There is no doubt that today is an extension of the past. The past is not confined to the history books; it is part of every object in our daily life, from commodities to clothes to food to architecture. The words “Established in 1981” are inscribed on the lid of a cosmetic jar I have at hand. A few days ago, I visited a building now inhabited by citizens of Shanghai that was a luxury Western-style hotel in the early twentieth century. The curry and rice I had for lunch in a Japanese restaurant in Shanghai today was originally an Indian traditional spicy stew. The dish travelled to Great Britain in the colonial era and became the dish “curry & rice,” then, in the late nineteenth century, it came to Japan and its taste was heavily adapted for Japanese palates. Now, it has been introduced to China, with additional adaptations to the taste and spice level. Our daily life is a patchwork of these different pasts, interwoven with the geographic and cultural aspects of the objects surrounding us, from products “made in the U.K.” to Western-style architectures. I use the term “patchwork” (we often use this word in Japanese) as a metaphor for the intricacy of reality, which is indeed a patchwork of different materials. Moreover, the fabric used in this patchwork is itself made up of warp and weft threads, which are themselves made up, metaphorically, of different fibres. In recent years, the art world’s use of fabric, thread and fibre has transcended the bounds of craft and threedimensional work to reach a level at which it can express and encompass all facets of contemporary society. This may be because the construction materials used in fibre art are the perfect fit to express our today’s extremely hybrid reality.
Zygmunt Bauman said that as a result of the compression of time and space by modern technology, such as low-cost carrier and the internet, disparities in income level and mobility are both wider and starker, leading to global fragmentation. At the same time, economic and social systems and links transcend country borders and have come to be quite difficult to control using existing systems, such as national governments. Globalization means neither the appearance of single market, nor the triumph of western liberal democracy. The difficulty that we are facing has roots in the colonial era and its currents of money, information and people that shaped today’s world, in which historical and geographical contexts are mixed and entangled. Nations (2007-) by N. S. Harsha does an impressive job of representing this situation. People are no longer united as a nation by one tribe, one language or one religion; we are all connected to each other across borders by many relationships. Those relationships can become serious entanglements and sometimes fester. However, there must be still hope, because as the sewing machines in the work imply, it is our hands that create the contents of our nations (i.e. our lives) as well as our connections to our neighbours.
Abdoulaye Konaté addresses topical themes such as the concept of the nation, national identity and indigenous culture/religion/ideology in his work, employing traditional west African dyeing techniques. While the technique conveys a feeling of a specific time and the African experience, the abstract colours and compositions impart a more universal feeling and curiosity about the different cultures. Taking a different approach, Mark Newport picks a rather contemporary image–the American comic book hero–as his motif. The knitted hero costumes symbolize paternal strength– protecting his family from bullies, murderers, terrorists, paedophiles and fanatics–while at the same time connoting the maternal touch that cares for family members, the artist says. The image of the hero is universal, while the crochet technique is domestic. The sense that this dichotomy can coexist might be a good example of our contemporaneity.
Suh Do Ho is producing his transparent building series out of traditional Korean summer dress fabric. He said his wish to carry around an environment that nourishes him (in his case, Korean traditional culture) inspired him to pursue this series. Here, the buildings can be read as a kind of clothes that mediate the body and the outer world. These expressions by a globally active artist offer us a strong feeling of compassion as human beings who live in the same age.

Ornella Ridone’s work illustrates modern times in a way that embraces uncanny feelings, depicting commodities in a consumerist society, a veteran without his leg, naked women and eerie body parts. The timeconsuming techniques used in the work, like hand embroidery and weaving, manifests her attitude of rebellion against consumerist mantras such as “more is better” and “faster is better.”
John Raustein demonstrates the ballooning, monstrous presence of materialism in our consumerist society by picking up on details of our daily life. By enlarging or overly repeating elements, he controls the visual aspects of what we normally see inside our houses. His intuitive installation, in which fabric material and spirituality are closely connected to each other, evokes a physical sensation that we live in today. Wu Wei employs a related methodology, using visual aspects to stimulate the tactile sensation. For example, White Tiger creates the texture of animal fur or skin using stacked paper. The White tiger is one of the imaginary animals appearing in ancient Chinese books. The idea of the mythical beast emerges in our mind through the medium of real materials.
Franz Erhard Walther calls his artwork “Objects To Use.” Each fabric object has openings, fasteners and straps and can be worn like clothes. Or, more audaciously, a group of several people can wear–and transform using their bodies–the objects. He thinks that the status of the objects when folded and resting is also a part of the artwork, and the installation/performance is a kind of negotiation between those two statuses–resting and being active–of the objects. In today’s consumerist society, in which the meanings of products are extremely disregarded, he invites our attention to how products are used and their condition.
In recent years global warming has become obvious; the course of nature and environmental issues are recognized as a problem that the whole world must tackle together, across national borders. Scientists have named our era, in which manmade substances like concrete and plastic have started accumulating, the Anthropocene, and have distinguished it from previous eras the earth has experienced. This recognizes that we cannot predict our future without facing the reality that human beings cannot simply go back to a time when there were no artificial materials. The science historian Donna Haraway has proposed another word, “Chthulucene,” as a contrast to the human-centric Anthropocene. Haraway’s Chthulucene emphasizes the viewpoints of non-human creatures, depicting a future that long time had passed in which even so-called human being might have perished. That future, where not only all species but also organic matter and inorganic matter are blended together, would be for all existence on the earth.
Simon Callery’s work makes us imagine the distant future Haraway evokes. The artist imbues fabric with pigment, washes it, sews it, or takes it outside and abrades it against a road surface. In a recent series, he collaborated with archaeologists to create works at and using an Iron Age excavation site. What he is focusing on here is the fabric’s potential as a medium to be imbued with records or experiences and convey that intangible information to the viewer. Meanwhile, ektor garcia’s installation work uses the traditions and craft techniques of Mexican folk art, including weaving, crochet, macramé, stitch, plaiting, embroidery and quilting. Using shapes that evoke Medieval instruments of torture, he reflects queer culture and Mesoamerican culture, which combines indigenous culture and European culture, while inevitably weaving in geographical distance and the passage of time. When this extreme hybridity emerges in front of our eyes, we will feel the advent of a world in which all different things are mixed, as Haraway suggested.
Fibre art weaves times, experiences and emotions into the gaps between different materials and pieces, as threads are woven and fibres twisted. In those intervals, we must not miss the rich, folded and hidden visions from all over the world.

1.Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 1-5
2.Donna Haraway, "Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin," Environmental Humanities, vol. 6, 2015