Textile is a vector of identity -
something more important than ever in times of war and crisis in
particular. It is connected to the body it covers like a second skin. It
both conceals and reveals, and contains a history and iconography whose
roots often lie deep in a culture's customs and traditions.


As
part of its extramural programme, and in collaboration with
award-winning photographer Mashid Mohadjerin and journalist Samira
Bendadi, Antwerp Fashion Museum (MoMu) have created a new exhibition and
accompanying publication on the importance of fabric and clothing to
issues of public concern today, such as migration, resistance,
tradition, spirituality and decolonisation.


The focus is on nine
stories of people whom curators Bendadi and Mohadjerin - in whose own
personal stories migration features prominently - met during their
travels to Paris, Antwerp, Lebanon, Africa, Morocco and Iran. Sometimes
the stories are warm and moving; at other times they are tough and
heart-wrenching. In them, textile embodies the ideas and emotions
coupled with forced or voluntary departure, the yearning for what has
been lost, letting go and holding on.


This storytelling and
photography exhibition will run from 15 November 2019 until 16 February
2020 at Texture Kortrijk, and will travel on to Kunsthal Extra City
Antwerp in spring 2020.


Text in English and Dutch.