You can’t ban embroidery! Why Arts Council England’s crackdown is a stitch-up

Has anyone behind ACE’s ban on ‘political statements’ been to Unravel? As this tumultuous show about textile art proves, even a quilt can tell a story of outrage, exploitation and horror

At first glance, an artwork might not appear outwardly political. Yet it is not enough to see it for aesthetic purposes only. Art requires us to pay attention, to question – and appreciate – what we are looking at, but also to see what lies beyond it. Take textiles, an art form historically deemed as “decorative” by the establishment, because of its association with women’s work. But what this categorisation actually reveals is a deep political subtext – the struggle for women’s rights of the last 500 years.

Relegated from the high arts in the Renaissance, the lowly status of textiles was cemented by the Royal Academy in 1769, when the newly founded society banned embroidery from its exhibitions. This influenced women to reject the medium if they wanted to be taken seriously as artists. The Bauhaus school marginalised women in its weaving workshop and, while some female artists of the 1970s used the needle as a form of protest, it is telling that, despite this being 2024, a group show dedicated to this art form still feels like a very rare treat.