Intimate and political – uses of embroidery and textile in contemporary Portuguese art

This text aims to address the work of Portuguese artists whose use of embroidery and textile confers an experimental dimension to traditional techniques, interrogates established cultural frameworks, and explores intimate autobiographical practices and feminist positions. In some cases, their mastery of technique is undeniable, while others manifest a preference for poetical forms of deskilling or appropriation. The essay not only covers artists drawn from the worlds of painting, sculpture, and jewellery, and who belong to various generations, although they all produce, but also discusses examples in which embroidery is used as a form of homage by those who count themselves as admirers. In this way, we hope to enlarge the geographical and cultural universe typically covered in the literature.