Queer Textiles: A blog reflecting on Queer Bath 2025
By Zoë Grech, a member of the Holburne Future Collective (our team of young adult volunteers)
June 2025
Textile based mediums have been widely used by queer artists. Textiles hold a significant place in traditions, each technique having different traditional gender roles associated with them. From the juxtaposition of such a traditional artform and the gendered assumptions around it as well as the communal aspect of certain textile projects, queer textiles art takes on an important role as an instrument of protest, memorial and exploring identity.
Deidrick Brackens’ work is a great example of the use of textiles. His works use traditional weaving, quilting and tapestry techniques from across various cultures to explore what identity means. He describes this use of cultural techniques to explore queer themes as “literally being a part of the fabric of the system trying desperately to deny their existence.”[1]
We are proud that Brackens’ first UK exhibition was held here at the Holburne.
Projects like the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt are powerful displays of community based textiles and memorialisation. AIDS quilts were made to serve as important reminders of those who have been lost in communities during the AIDS crisis. The magnitude of the quilts barely starts to reflect the toll this epidemic had on the queer community. It is made up of around 50,000 panels and is dedicated to over 110,000 individuals.
The transition quilt made by Colin Lievens, Eleanor Louise West, Al Hill and Joe Lawn, is a great ongoing piece that also serves to give comfort but also educate. The quilt is made up of their pretransition clothing as they take turns to add to it with a mixture of fun, historical and serious messages and images. They have a visual story available on their website.
Textiles can also play an important role in protest being used to share slogans and messages in ways that subvert the expectations of the mediums. For pride we have a free PDF pattern made by one of our volunteers.
Join us at the Holburne on 30 June 2025 for a pride themed woven friendship bracelet workshop and more.
Further Reading
Colin Lievens, Transition Quilt Visual Story
Holburne Museum, Diedrick Brackens: Woven Stories
John Chaich and Todd Oldham, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community (2017)
National AIDS Memorial, What is the AIDS Memorial Quilt?
[1] John Chaich, Todd Oldham, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community (Pasadena: Ammo, 2017) p. 158