The Textile Museum/Textiellab in Tilburg has more and more a name among enthusiasts and people who work with textiles professionally.
About the TextielMuseum in Tilburg in brief. It is a museum that focuses specifically on textile design, visual art and industrial heritage. The latter mainly in the sense of the history of textile production and industrialization in Tilburg in the 19th century. In Tilburg, this mainly concerns the processing of wool. In the textile museum you can see how textiles are made in the TextielLab, a unique development center for textiles. You can also view various exhibitions on historical and current themes in the field of textiles. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday.
This blogpost is written bij B&B Tilburg Gust van Dijk and first published on 8 February 2018 and actualized in 2023. Especially the annex TextielLab, the by now renowned workshop for research and use of the latest processing techniques and new textile materials, knows how to attract designers and artists for a period of research or work. Of course the real fans already know how to find this place flawlessly for workshops and meetings in which either the history or the near future for textile applications are central.
The former TextielMuseum was opened in 1958 in a former manufacturer’s villa on Gasthuisstraat, but since 1985 it has been housed in the former textile factory of the firm C. Mommers & Co. on Goirkestraat. Mommers & Co. was once one of the largest employers in Tilburg.
In May 2008, after a thorough renovation, the museum reopened with new allure. In addition to informing visitors about the history and rise of the textile industry in Tilburg, the Textielmuseum has truly become a ‘working’ museum with running and producing machines. A museum with a workshop for the development of ‘state of the art’ contemporary textiles and a laboratory for designers and artists.
Following on from this, the Textile Museum creates exhibitions that often have both a historical slant and focus on the latest developments. With inspiring exhibitions in the field of textile design, visual art and industrial heritage, there is something for everyone at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg. This special combination makes the museum both informative and attractive.
One of the examples of how such exhibitions work, in which the imagination is really in power, is the summer exhibition “Under the Skin” in 2015. No, it is not the earlier (2013) SiFi-Horor film by director Jonathan Glazer with Scarlett Johansson, but a brought together collection of sculptures as well as raw material textiles, which keep the middle between something human and animal. The exhibition Under the Skin in the Textile Museum deals with concepts such as vulnerability, life, pain and protection. In addition to sculptures, installations and films by artists from different countries were on display.
In other exhibitions, the basic material was the starting point, such as ‘silk’ or the technique such as the most recent exhibition on ‘lace’ in ‘The Art of Lace’.
