Open lecture craft: The Intersections of Textiles and Cinema

Textiles, like cinema, are visual and spatial texts that serve as a sequential record of time. Both mediums are intrinsically given to narrative and whether they are constructed frame by frame or stitch by stitch, they each tell stories through incremental and procedural processes. In this two-part lecture, I will first discuss how textiles and cinema inform one another through process, form, and narrative with a focus on historical and contemporary artists working within these points of connection. I will also give an introduction to my studio practice and talk about how these ideas have provided a framework for my own work. Ultimately, I hope to show that the value found in locating connections between these disparate fields is that it can be a generative source in expanding creative practices. I also hope to demonstrate the value and contributions that a craft-based framework can bring to the field of film and in giving us new ways to approach moving images.

Kate Nartker works between animation and weaving to dismantle images, narratives, and material structures. She received an MFA from the California College of the Arts and is an Assistant Professor of Textile Design at North Carolina State University. Her work has been included in exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, including The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, The Contemporary Austin, and the Hordaland Art Center in Bergen, Norway. She was named a 2023 Fulbright U.S. Scholar and her writing has been published in the Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, Research Journal of Textile and Apparel, and the Surface Design Journal.