The 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art opened at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, capital city of East China's Zhejiang province on Oct 18.

Co-organized by the Zhejiang Artists Association, the Zhejiang Art Museum, the Contemporary Fiber Art Institute of China Academy of Art and the Hangzhou Museum, the event will run until Dec 4. Artworks and installations of over 60 artists from more than a dozen countries and regions will be showcased.

Inaugurated in 2013, the triennial connects world through fiber art, said Huang Yan, project director and head of the Department of Fiber Art at China Academy of Art.

"As far as fiber art education and fabric research are concerned, this event is quite a novel approach for the cultural exchanges between East and West in the new era of digital development," Huang added.

Featuring prominent artists such as Ann Hamilton, Annette Messager and Alice Kettle, the fourth edition of the Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art is themed "Being Theoria" - an interpretation of the idea of art through fiber. A key focus of the triennial is the way fiber is created, studied, perceived and worked with.

"Fiber" is regarded as the basic structure of the world and the archetype of human thought, according to Liu Tian, the chief curator of the triennial.

"It connects us across the globe both in the literal sense, as shown by everyday items such as paper, silk and cloth, and in the metaphorical sense, as indicated by the organization and structure of the world and how we depict and understand it," Tian said.

"What's interesting is that the Chinese words and phrases describing these items and even our sentiments contain the same radical, which means fiber or thread," Tian explained. "It is these subtle connections between fiber art and our world that we try to highlight."

Meanwhile, "Pure Reason", a special project of this year's Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, opened to the public on September 30. Over 20 works by a dozen artists are interspersed throughout the Hangzhou Museum, according to Xu Xiaoxiao, deputy director of the museum and coordinator of the special project.

The special project will close on Dec 4, the same day the triennial comes to a close.

Official poster of the 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art. [Photo provided to ezhejiang.gov.cn]

Official poster of "Pure Reason", a special project of the 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art. [Photo provided to ezhejiang.gov.cn]