Yunuen Pérez returns to fortyfivedownstairs with a new series of work exploring cultural heritage and traditional textiles as the inspiration to create new performative and cultural connections with the medium.  The Language of Colour: A Textile Journey opens in March 2018.

Pérez presents contemporary textiles as an expressive medium to represent cultural significance embedded in a design object.  The exhibition is a cross-pollination for the influence that traditional textiles have into contemporary practice, in particular textiles as a cross-generational carrier of meanings and narratives that contribute to understanding societies and cultures.  Featuring a selection of new works, the textiles reveal the hardship of the art form and the artist’s cultural and emotional engagement with textiles.

Opening as part of Melbourne Design Week, The Language of Colour will attract not only specialised audiences but also children and people interested in manifestations of cultural heritage.  Likewise, the exhibition will strengthen visitors’ experiences by emphasising the formal qualities of an art form that it is in dialogue with the artist’s cultural heritage.

Pérez is the founder of Yarn for Hands, a social movement that started in 2017 which aims to gift a hand-knitted item to homeless in Melbourne.  In 2017, Yarn for Hands gave out 25 scarves and collected over 100 balls of wool from donations by locals and international visitors.  As part of this exhibition, Pérez will ask people to donate wool and hand-knitted items in preparation for the upcoming winter.