About

A year after their digital show, the Royal College of Art 2020 Textile graduates present their work in a physical group exhibition for the first time.

From five streams – Knit, Mixed Media, Print, Soft Systems and Weave – visitors can explore a diversity of approaches to the craft of textile making in its construction, preservation and interactivity. The RCA2020 Textile Graduates are builders of narratives, spaces and objects; they breathe new life into forms, substances and stories. Their practice has a playful approach to the senses, environments and bodies.

Having graduated during England’s first lockdown in 2020, their work reflects resilience in the face of adversity. The graduates re-worked, re-designed and re-envisioned their practices, adapting from the tactile environments of textile studios to the novel spaces of digital media. Now, with the world slowly opening up, they reach back to the core of their craft, forever changed by experiences of last year.

Curated by Sylwia Orynek, one of the graduates and now a PhD researcher, the One Year On exhibition showcases the ambiguity of contemporary textiles, as craft processes, tools and materials become hybrid: analogue and digital, personal and remote, fiercely crossing the boundaries of disciplines.