Many of us will have experienced the powerful rush by opening a drawer, cupboard or closet and finding a piece of clothing that holds deep meaning for us - a scarf that we wore as a child, a comfort blanket, a shawl that retains our mother's perfume. For Fabric of Memory, Lee Mingwei has invited Liverpool residents to recall the stories and memories bound up for them in handmade textiles and clothing, often gifts from other family members. He offers us the opportunity to share in these memories, and to explore our own physical and emotional responses to the textiles and their histories.

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Many of us will have experienced the powerful rush by opening a drawer, cupboard or closet and finding a piece of clothing that holds deep meaning for us - a scarf that we wore as a child, a comfort blanket, a shawl that retains our mother's perfume. For Fabric of Memory, Lee Mingwei has invited Liverpool residents to recall the stories and memories bound up for them in handmade textiles and clothing, often gifts from other family members. He offers us the opportunity to share in these memories, and to explore our own physical and emotional responses to the textiles and their histories.

Many of Lee Mingwei's works exist as situations in which participants explore issues of trust, intimacy and self-awareness. So when the artist discovered a rare tendency in the people of Liverpool to initiate conversations with strangers such as himself, and confess all, he felt quite at home.
Fabric of Memory taps into this tendency and reveals how personal histories can be captured by objects.


Lee invited local residents to lend handmade textiles, typically items of clothing made by and received from a family member during childhood. Both maker and receiver were asked to provide a history of the item, exploring their memories of giving or wearing it and the feelings it now evokes. Placed in its own box, each object is accompanied by its two documented histories. The viewer is invited to open each box, share in its memories and recall their own.


Tactile, scented and kept for years, handmade textiles have the potential, perhaps more so than any other objects, to hold highly emotive, personal narratives and to embody something of the people who made them. Lee himself recalls an anxious first day at kindergarten and the comfort he got from wearing a jacket made by his mother.

Laurence Sillars
www.tate.org.uk/fabricofmemory

[LESS]
Many of Lee Mingwei's works exist as situations in which participants explore issues of trust, intimacy and self-awareness. So when the artist discovered a rare tendency in the people of Liverpool to initiate conversations with strangers such as himself, and confess all, he felt quite at home.
Fabric of Memory taps into this tendency and reveals how personal histories can be captured by objects.


Lee invited local residents to lend handmade textiles, typically items of clothing made by and received from a family member during childhood. Both maker and receiver were asked to provide a history of the item, exploring their memories of giving or wearing it and the feelings it now evokes. Placed in its own box, each object is accompanied by its two documented histories. The viewer is invited to open each box, share in its memories and recall their own.


Tactile, scented and kept for years, handmade textiles have the potential, perhaps more so than any other objects, to hold highly emotive, personal narratives and to embody something of the people who made them. Lee himself recalls an anxious first day at kindergarten and the comfort he got from wearing a jacket made by his mother.

Laurence Sillars
www.tate.org.uk/fabricofmemory