We are writing to share our Call for Papers for the session “Decoding the Pattern: Remapping Global Textile Art History Through a Contemporary Lens,” which we are co-chairing at the 2026 SECAC Conference (October 2026, Winston-Salem, NC).
This session reexamines textiles as a visual and mterial medium through which complex narratives of identity, power, labor, and materiality are constructed and circulated. Focusing on the global movement of textile art, we consider how fabrics, fibers, and weaving techniques have operated historically within both everyday life and systems of visual representation. From premodern ritual and religious contexts to imperial courts and vernacular markets, textiles have mediated systems of value and belief, encoding social hierarchies and cultural knowledge within their threads—from yunjin brocades and intricate embroideries to quilts, garments, and other fiber forms.

Foregrounding materiality, we invite scholars and artists to approach textiles as living archives of cultural exchange, colonial encounter, migration, and technological transformation. We are particularly interested in how contemporary artists—including figures such as Pacita Abad, Melissa Cody, Marie Watt, Lin Tianmiao, and Chiharu Shiota—reinterpret textile traditions to generate new art historical narratives and modes of self-representation. Through a contemporary lens, this session seeks papers that examine how artists engage, disrupt, and reimagine textile techniques and materials in ways that challenge inherited global art historical frameworks.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to: textiles as resistance; postcolonial remappings of craft; digital weaving and technological mediation; labor and gender; and cross-cultural translation in fiber arts. Geographic focuses may include Asia, Indigenous regions of the Americas, and the Pacific Islands, among others.

Please consider submitting a proposal by SECAC’s deadline of April 1, 2026 (11:59 PM EST). We would be delighted to hear from you, and please reach out if you have any questions.

Conference details can be found here: https://secacart.org/page/WinstonSalem2026.