Soft Surge exhibition deals with motherhood, grief and activism

A new group exhibition of textile works will be officially opened at Athlone's Luan Gallery later this week.

The summer show, Soft Surge, comprises newly commissioned contemporary textile works exploring themes of identity, motherhood, women’s collectivity, grief, resistance, activism and sociopolitical dissent in Ireland.

Laura McCormack, Acting Westmeath Arts Officer, will officially launch the exhibition at 6pm on Friday, June 27, with the showcase running until Sunday, September 7.

The exhibition is set to include works from artists Shirani Bolle, Ursula Burke, Rachel Fallon, Dee Mulrooney, Lucy Peters, Emily Waszak and The Irish Names Project - Curated by Aoife Banks.

Through a range of practices and processes including sculpture, embroidery, weaving, knitting, tapestry, film, photography, and mixed media, the artists featured in this exhibition explore the soft power and radical potential of textiles.

Soft Surge features newly commissioned works by Emily Waszak and Dee Mulrooney, alongside existing works by contemporary female artists who mobilise cloth and fibre as both tactile material and affective framework. Drawing inspiration from the Moirae, the Greek Fates who spun, measured, and cut the threads of life, Soft Surge posits its exhibiting artists as weavers of narratives shaped by trauma, resilience, and embodied political agency.

Through her stitched, tufted, embroidered, and beaded monstrosities, Shirani Bolle’s work offers a personal meditation on growing up in an immigrant household in suburban England.

Rachel Fallon uses sculpture, drawing, photography and performance techniques to address women’s relationships to society.

Two quilts from The Irish Names Project offer a sombre meditation on the impact of AIDS and HIV in Ireland since the 1980s. The Irish Names Project was initiated in 1990 by Mary Shannon (1947-2020), and created a space to share personal stories and grief over loved ones lost to HIV/AIDS within a climate of stigmatisation and secrecy.

Ursula Burke destabilises conventions around traditional approaches to making by using unexpected juxtapositions of materials, processes and images with a desire that bends towards the surreal.

Lucy Peters' series of soft sculptures are informed by research into fast fashion production and consumption practices, and the physical architecture of fashion retail display.

Themes of grief and loss are present in Emily Waszak’s work. Waszak’s newly commissioned Obaachan I (2025) is a monumental hand-woven textile sculpture that explores ritual as an ancestral technology.

This exhibition has been kindly supported by The Arts Council.

An accompanying programme of events will be presented throughout the exhibition.