Event

Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles

17th March - 3rd May
Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester, Lancaster Road, Leicester, LE1 7HA
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This exhibition is in partnership with Hayward Gallery Touring.

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 13 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.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Caroline Achaintre, Jonathan Baldock, Phyllida Barlow, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Alexandre da Cunha, Holly Hendry, Tonico Lemos Auad, Paul Maheke, Anna Perach, Yelena Popova, Paloma Proudfoot, Yinka Shonibare, Rae-Yen Song, Tenant of Culture and Zadie Xa.

Performances

12:00 to 17:00 - Tuesday 17th March

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12:00 to 17:00 - Wednesday 18th March

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12:00 to 17:00 - Thursday 19th March

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12:00 to 17:00 - Friday 20th March

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12:00 to 17:00 - Saturday 21st March

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12:00 to 17:00 - Sunday 22nd March

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Contact

Attenborough Arts Centre
University of Leicester, Lancaster Road
Leicester
LE1 7HA
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© Event information from Data Thistle - 2026

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