In talks with Lesley Millar; Lost in Lace curator

Lost in Lace, the first exhibition programmed through the Crafts Council’s biennial Fifty:Fifty scheme, through which the Crafts council co-funds and co-produces an exhibition with a partner organisation chosen from open selection, begins end

of October at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The Craft council initiative seeks to develop projects that are match funded by the council and a partner.

Lost in Lace is an exhibition which presents lace in a light you are unlikely to have seen before; as 20 leading and emerging international artists explore relationships between space and textiles through dramatic installations. Aiming to challenge the viewer’s existing notions of space, names to note include Atelier Manferdini, who will invert a crystal cathedral hanging ceiling to floor, Chiharu Shiota’s web of interlacing black thread, Michael Brennan Wood, who explores his anti-militaristic sentiments and Tamar Frank’s 3D parabolic curves.

In the lead up to the this novel and exciting exhibit, FashionUnited caught up with Lesley Millar, exhibit curator, MBE and Professor of Textile Culture at University of the Creative Arts.

FashionUnited: How did the Lost In Lace exhibition come about? In curating this exhibit, what effect/direction are you looking to take?
Lesley Millar: In 2009 I was invited by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to curate an exhibition for their Gas Hall. I set out to create an exhibition investigating the relationship between the light, pure, ethereal and the dark magical, transgressive associations with lace and the fluidity of thresholds and boundaries.

Why did you decide now was the right time to do it?
I have always been fascinated by the relationship between textiles and space and the Gas Hall, with its 1,000 square meters of space provided the perfect setting for an exhibition of large scale works developing ideas of fluid and ambiguous descriptions of space. And, as it turned out, lace has become the textile topic of the moment, which I couldn’t have known in 2009. FU: How do you aim to challenge established notions of textile and space through this exhibit? The different materials and techniques demonstrate the diversity of response to my challenge: how to revolutionise the configuration of space through the use of the structural and cultural implications of lace? The final installations will, I hope, question the ways in which we move through space and the nature of boundaries and thresholds.

Do you think that the possibilities open with textiles haven’t been realised enough within the industry?
The most exciting and innovative outcomes are to be found in the new techno-textiles which are used not only in fashion but in the building industry, space technology, as body parts. And of course the textiles created by Japanese designers revolutionised fashion design in the 1980’s and 90’s

What do you find interesting about working with lace as a textile itself? If anything, what message do you want to convey to the audience?
Lace net-works are formed by clear structures and spaces; they have the potential to surround but not enclose space; they afford visual access to the spaces beyond; they are complete in themselves and can expand exponentially. Lace net-works also carry strong cultural narratives concerning boundaries, ones that are closely linked to the body, which could be translated into metaphorical and actual descriptors of space.

Can you give me an overview of some of the key installations we can expect to see?
Piper Shepard, from the USA, with her exquisite hand cut velum lace structures. For this exhibition she is taking for her start point a piece of point de gaze lace from the Birmingham lace collection, and will create an installation following the lines of the architectural columns that line the aisles.

Chiharu Shiota, from Japan, whose dense black calligraphic networks are not only three dimensional drawings of space but also threads of memory and connection, entrapment and claustrophobia.

Annie Bascoul, from France. She is using the traditional Alençon needle lace technique but working in a large scale to form a wall of white lace which casts long shadows of lace on the ground and so we are asked to think at what point are we crossing the threshold and entering the work.

Michael Brennand Wood, from the UK, whose intention is to create “a Military Lace, emblematic of conflict and the annexing of resources and territory” within a visual field that “echoes the instructional, pricked, diagrammatic papers on which bobbin laces are constructed.”

Elena Manferdini, an Italian architect based in Los Angeles, specialising in lace structures. After visiting the Gas Hall she has proposed an (astonishing) Inverted Crystal Cathedral created by 1,000 kilos of crystal, the outer layers sponsored by Swarovski – the ultimate interpretation of the Venetian expression for lace making: punto in aria – stitching the air.

And which do you consider to be the most groundbreaking and why?
In the exhibition Dr Kathleen Rogers is working with scientists at the University of Southampton using the latest Con-Focal microscopy techniques to take thousands of images of the inside of lace threads which she feeds into a computer programme and creates a video of the images that will be projected large onto the wall.

How do you see the role of lace/textiles in fashion and design practice evolving in the future?
I should hope that this exhibition, through its use of lace structures, will shape public and professional perception of the potentially radical relationship between textiles and architecture.

If you could curate any exhibit, what would it be and why?
An exhibition I should love to do is of the film, opera and theatre costumes of the amazing Japanese designer Emi Wada. She won the Oscar for her costumes for Ran and people here would know her work from House of the Flying Daggers or Hero. Her costumes carry the narrative of the film/opera/play in a way I have never been so aware of with other costumes. She is also totally committed to having artisans create her materials – her kimono are woven by those who only use the traditional techniques – which are dying out as the artisans pass away. She is now quite an elderly (but absolutely dynamic) lady and her wonderful work should be celebrated.