Textile Masks: The Fabric of Identity. From Post-Digital Textile Artistic Creation to Art-Fashion as a Tool for Critique and Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage

Abstract

This article examines Textile Masks: The Fabric of Identity, a series of contemporary textile art artefacts produced by the authors between 2024 and 2025, as a post-digital artistic expression situated within the field of art-fashion and engaged with social critique and the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. The series comprises handcrafted textile objects conceived as sculptural masks, developed through traditional textile techniques—specifically hand stitching and trapunto quilting—in dialogue with post-digital aesthetics. The analysis addresses two typological groups of artefacts: textile objects that incorporate technological components,
namely augmented reality, and textile objects that, while materially analogue, critically reflect on processes of digital rematerialisation without embedding technology within the object itself. Drawing on works such as Synthesis and selected pieces from the Textile Masks series, the article explores how the convergence of textile practices and digital imaginaries generates hybrid artistic forms that challenge the boundaries between the tangible and the virtual. It is argued that these post-digital textile practices renew contemporary visual languages while operating as instruments of cultural critique and as mechanisms for safeguarding intangible
heritage by reinscribing ancestral knowledge into contemporary artistic narratives.