Interwoven: Fiber Arts and Soft Sculpture

Interwoven: Fiber Arts and Soft Sculpture features works by 15 undergraduate Studio Art students created during a course led by Professor Beili Liu, which explored experimental approaches to artmaking through fiber art. In the class, students learned about historical and contemporary fiber art techniques, innovative artists and boundary-pushing artworks, and gained new skills to develop their own creative practices.

This exhibition showcases the artworks created as part of the students’ coursework, demonstrating how experimenting with unconventional materials and craft processes can yield unexpected results, inspire new artistic approaches, and encourage evolution within a creative practice. From wearable sculptures to woven installations, Interwoven: Fiber Arts and Soft Sculpture invites viewers to broaden their understanding of what constitutes fiber as a medium and to challenge the often-narrow definition of craft within contemporary art discourse, toward a more inclusive and complex characterization.

Interwoven: Fiber Arts and Soft Sculpture is organized by Fionayuko Forbes and Beili Liu, Leslie Waggener Professor in Fine Arts, Professor of Studio Arts in Sculpture and Extended Media, and a University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Professor.

This exhibition is part of Fieldwork Projects, a series of dynamic collaborations between faculty and students in the Department of Art and Art History that take on various forms and enable the ideas and processes developed in the classroom to be brought into the public sphere.