Contextile 2024
Jury
The artistic works will be selected by an international jury, composed by Cindy Steiler (visual artist), Cláudia Melo (artistic director of Contextile 2024), Janis Jefferies (Emeritus professor of visual arts and curator), Lala de Dios (art historian, curator and teacher of textile) and Magda Soboń (textile artist and visual arts teacher).
Cláudia Melo
b. 1975, Porto
Independent curator, consultant and artistic director. Higher Education Teacher (ESE-IPP, UTC ARTES VISUAIS). Visual artist. Artistic Director of Contextile – Contemporary Textile Art Biennial. Curator at the European project Magic Carpets -European Platforms – Creative Europe.
Member of the Management Board Committee of Magic Carpets – European Platforms – Creative Europe.
Graduated in Fine Arts – Painting by the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto.
She attended the curricular components of the Master’s Degree in Contemporary Artistic Creation, University of Aveiro and the PhD in Contemporary Art, College of Arts, University of Coimbra. She was a researcher at Citar (Arts Theory Research Centre, School of Arts, Catholic University).
Words defining Textile Art today:
– origin / future
– transversality
– specificity and expansion
Janis Jefferis
Janis Jefferies is emeritus Professor of Visual Arts, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. From 2015 – 2018, she held the position of Associate Pro Warden for Creative and Cultural Industries at Goldsmiths, responsible for policy and implementation, Goldsmiths Digital Studios, Thursday Club, Centre for Creative Collaboration, internationalisation, ethics and integrity, research and enterprise. She focused on the intersection of arts and technology (textiles, performance, sound, publishing), new economic business models (NESTA), cultural heritage (museums and archives).
With a long-standing engagement in how fibre intersects with feminist practice and art-based textiles. Jefferies’s work considers issues of gender and identity subjectivity. Her later research and practice have expanded to encompass sonic art, digital art, and haptic technology, considering access and impact for different audiences. Exhibiting in ‘Women in Revolt! Art! Activism and Politics,’ TATE Britain, UK (November 2023 and touring). She is co-chief editor of the 10 volume Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of World Textiles with Dr Vivienne Richmond, due 2025.
Lala de Dios
Art historian by education and a vocational weaver.
She teaches and lectures on textile art, design and crafts both at her country and abroad (Facultad de Bellas Artes de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, 2023; Andalusian Centre for Contemporary Art, Seville, 2022; National Museum of Decorative Arts, Madrid, 2021; China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and University of Guangzhou, 2019; Tama Art University in Tokio and Yamagata School of Art&Design, Japan, 2018; Textile Talks Contextile 2020 and 2018, Guimarães, Portugal…).
She has curated a number of national and international exhibitions and events (Fine Tuning, 2022; Peninsulares 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2013, Spain and Portugal; Pushing the Limits, online, 2020 ongoing; Loose Ends, Guimarães, 2014…). Member of the jury of several editions of Contextile, Art al Vent and the WTA Biennial editions in Costa Rica and Colombia.
She has worked in cooperation for development projects in Africa and South America, an experience which has greatly enriched her understanding of textile practices in widely different local contexts. Co-founder and current chairwoman of Asociación para la Creación Textil (former Asociación de Creadores Textiles de Madrid). President of the Spanish National Arts&Crafts Organisation. Former president of the European Textile Network ETN from 1997 to 2019 where she now sits at the Advisory Council. Member -among others- of Madrid Designers Association DIMAD and Women in Visual Arts MAV.
Magda Soboń
Magdalena Soboń is a visual artist specialising in paper and textile art and university professor at the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Art in Łódź in Poland.
In her work, she explores the various possibilities of paper matter and natural fibres as forms of artistic expression. Using texture and structure, she searches for an universal language of expression and creates large-format objects that retain the characteristic features for textile.
She is an author of several solo exhibitions and she participated in numerous group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. She is a winner of some prestigious awards as: The Prize of the organisation’s Board Members of the ‘Biennale Internationale du Lin de Portneuf’ (BILP) in Canada in 2020; The Prize granted by the Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship at 11th Baltic Mini Textile in Gdynia, Poland in 2019; Honourable mention at 1st Biennale of Textile Art in Poznań, Poland in 2017; Honourable mention at Contextile 2016 – Contemporary Textile Art Biennial in Portugal in 2016, Grand Prix at 14th International Triennial of Tapestry in Łódź, Poland in 2013; Excellent mention at 7th International Fibre Art Biennale ‘From Lausanne To Beijing’ in China in 2012; Honourable mention at 6th International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art in Mexico in 2011; Bronze Medal at 6th International Fibre Art Biennale – From Lausanne To Beijing in China in 2010.