Narelle Jubelin at Goldsmiths College, London

Abstract

Dr. Catherine Harper reviews Narelle Jubelin's Constance Howard Memorial Lecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London, November 2001. She discusses Jubelin's deliberate and seductive use of the traditions of petit point embroidery in relation to her examination of colonialism, consumption, and identity.Textile means have been used by a range of female visual practitioners to examine, for example, women's historical and contemporary oppression within the domestic or industrial economy; within specific cultures and geographies; within fashion; within medical practices; as well as to make contemporary pictorial and design representations of non-traditional subject matter.Narelle Jubelin requires in her practice that we consider the construction of exclusive national identities, contemporary manifestations of historical colonialism, the politics of geographical exploration, systems of commerce, imperialism and global trade, and the relational exchanges of art and culture. And she makes these huge abstract issues unavoidable for us by rendering them small, intimate, engaging, and via the apparently innocuous craft of petit point embroidery. She makes us take heed of that which we may not wish to encounter, that which might make us uncomfortable, that which might implicate us in systems of desire and economy less savory than we might hope.