7 Artists on Soft Sculptures: Why Artists Turn to Textile
The video gathers seven contemporary artists who explain why they gravitate toward soft, textile‑based sculpture. They argue that the tactile quality of yarn, fabric, and found materials offers a counterpoint to the dominance of hard media such as metal, stone, and plastic, fulfilling a collective yearning for softness in an increasingly rigid world. Key insights include the development of hand‑crocheted techniques that forgo needles, allowing massive, fluid forms; the communal studio process of dyeing and cutting cotton strips; and the intentional use of discarded clothing, buttons, and even synthetic hair extensions. By constructing “second skins” that mask gender, race, and class, the artists force viewers to confront the work without preconceived judgments. Notable examples feature an artist who repurposes his late father’s shirts as protective armor, another who draws on Waldorf school weaving traditions, and a third who celebrates Nordic textile heritage while subverting mass‑produced fabrics. These anecdotes illustrate how personal memory, cultural lineage, and pop‑culture references converge in the material choices. The broader implication is a shift toward sustainable, experiential art that re‑engages audiences with craft, tactile perception, and ecological consciousness. As textile sculpture gains visibility, it challenges market conventions, expands the definition of fine art, and invites consumers to reconsider everyday objects as vessels of meaning.
Booker Prize Winner Samantha Harvey on Writing, Time, and the Shape of a Life
Samantha Harvey traces her literary formation to watching her mother ghostwrite and to an early fascination with the passage of time, which she now explores obsessively through novels. Trained in philosophy, she turned to fiction as a more effective way...
Artist Annette Messager: Like in a Dream
Annette Messager, French contemporary artist, explains in the video how her practice blends installation, photography, and textile work, rooted in instinct and personal history. She describes growing up with an architect‑painter father whose calm demeanor while painting shaped her disciplined yet...
Artist and Architect Liam Young: My Solutions Are Not Polite
Liam Young argues that today’s "before‑culture" technologies outpace society’s ability to comprehend them, demanding an architectural practice that moves at tech’s breakneck speed. He positions architecture as a rare interdisciplinary bridge, capable of translating between engineers, scientists, filmmakers, and policymakers,...
Artist Paulina Olowska: ”I Think Being an Artist Is Kind of Like Being a Medium.
Polish artist Paulina Olowska describes her practice as a medium that senses the right moment and energy, while recounting her move to a small village and the restoration of the historic Kadenówka house into a creative sanctuary. Olowska explains that Kadenówka,...
Writer Seán Hewitt: The Gift of Shame
Sean Hewitt uses a talk titled “The Gift of Shame” to explore how poetry, memoir, and religious imagery function as tools for arresting and revisiting time. He likens poems to photographs that freeze a single expression, allowing readers to return...
Will Oldham on His Artistic Alter Ego, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy #music #bonnieprincebilly #folk
In a candid interview, singer‑songwriter Will Oldham explains why he adopted the moniker Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy as an artistic alter ego, framing it as a strategic separation between his personal identity and the voice listeners hear. Oldham argues that audiences naturally...
Becoming Sophie Calle: “Sometimes You Suffer, and It Offers You a Boulevard of Pleasure.”
Sophie Calle reflects on a lifetime of personal loss, family dynamics, and the mundane objects that have become the scaffolding of her art. The interview weaves anecdotes about a giraffe plush representing her mother, a bed‑in‑India project that launched her Venice...
Sophie Calle Gives Advice to the Young #contemporaryart #art
Sophie Calle, the celebrated French conceptual artist, appears on camera reflecting on the difficulty of offering guidance to a new generation of creators. She notes her own circumstances—no children, no teaching role, and a life lived across decades—make her perspective...
How Małgorzata Mirga-Tas Uses Textile Art to Reclaim Roma Stories
Małgorzata Mirga‑Tas, a Polish‑Romani artist, uses vibrant textile collages to reclaim Roma history and memory. By stitching fabrics from family and friends, she replaces bleak palettes with bright, patterned cloth, honoring traumatic events like the Holocaust while celebrating everyday life....
Turkish Writer Zülfü Livaneli on Poet Yaşar Kemal: "He Was My Best Friend for 44 Years."
Turkish musician‑writer Zülfü Livaneli pays heartfelt tribute to his longtime friend, novelist Yaşar Kemal, recalling a 44‑year bond that spanned Istanbul, Paris, Stockholm and exile. Livaneli notes Kemal’s universal reach—his novel “My Hawk” topped bestseller lists in Sweden, Britain and the...
Painter Michael Craig-Martin: "A Picture of a Shoe Has Nothing to Do with a Shoe."
Painter Michael Craig‑Martin uses a simple shoe illustration to argue that two‑dimensional images are fundamentally separate from the objects they depict. He emphasizes that a picture of a shoe “has nothing to do with a shoe,” framing visual representation as...
Pipilotti Rist on Her Iconic Work 'Ever Is Over All' (1997) #contemporaryart #art
The video features Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist discussing her 1997 work "Ever Is Over All," an iconic looping video of a woman smashing windows with a flower. Rist recounts that the idea emerged from a fraught encounter with a newspaper...
Artist Isabella Ducrot: The Story of the World Has Been Written by Male Minds #contemporaryart #art
Isabella Ducrot, born in 1931 in Naples, has built a four‑decade career that fuses textile motifs with pencil, pastel, ink and watercolour on delicate paper. Her practice compresses philosophy, folklore and weaving traditions into intimate and monumental compositions. Ducrot’s works...
Artist Sophie Calle: “In My Youth, Losing One Year Didn’t Exist.”
Sophie Calle reflects on a generation that perceived time as limitless, recalling how, in her youth, the notion of "losing a year" was unheard of. She recounts spending seven years hitchhiking across Mexico and other countries without money, relying on...