The fifth Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art exhibit opens on Tuesday at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, featuring the works of 45 artists from 17 countries and regions. It will run until Nov 2. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The fifth Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art exhibit opened on Tuesday at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. This year's event showcases the artworks of 45 artists from 17 countries and regions.

The title of this year's theme, Re-Constellations, can be attributed to the German scholar Walter Benjamin, who used the concept of constellations as a metaphor and proposed that truth is not monolithic but unfolds within different hermeneutic frameworks, according to the curatorial team.

Fiber art is one of the oldest and most vibrant art forms of expression, according to Yu Xuhong, president of the China Academy of Art. "To some extent, its history co-exists with human development. With advancements in materials and technology, contemporary fiber art finds itself at a dynamic cultural intersection — carrying the oldest memories of human handicraft while playing with the most cutting-edge contemporary discourse."

Ultimately, according to Yu, the exhibition aims to "allow diverse civilizations to radiate new brilliance through their interweaving and through juxtaposing and suturing different temporal dimensions".

Featuring such prominent fiber artists as Anne Wilson, Diana Scherer, and Wang Xiaosong, this year's exhibit seeks to examine fiber art through the context of globalization, with its intentional centering of Global South perspectives.

The interweaving of the warp and weft of textiles shares uncanny similarities with the connection of the stars, said Jiang Jun, one of the co-curators of the triennial.

"Different civilizations have been using their own 'cultural warp and weft' to weave a map of the universe, becoming the fabric of the symbiosis of multiple narratives," he said.

"We seek to challenge the single, Western-centric standard through the artworks of the exhibition, to reweave the 'starry sky narratives' of different civilizations," Jiang said.

At the opening ceremony, the organizers also revealed that the next edition of the triennial would be traveling to the University of Manchester in the UK.

The triennial will run until Nov 2.