The dishwasher has robbed the good old kitchen towel of some of its practical significance. Nevertheless, it remains present in many households, hand-woven or industrially produced, lint-free or absorbent, dirty or clean, inherited or replaceable. As a textile and as an everyday item, it is emblematic of topical social issues, such as unpaid care work, colonialism, and equality. Moreover, a tea towel evokes manifold associations and is linked to countless personal memories, experiences, and anecdotes.

For a long time, specially-made kitchen towels were a luxury and reserved for the upper classes. Industrial mass production has changed this, and today two developments can be observed: while kitchen towels are displayed as design objects in museum stores and craft stores, they are also standardized, cheap goods.

In The Tea Towel: Perspectives on an Everyday Item, thirteen authors, artists, and designers enter into a dialogue with the object and examine it from a journalistic, artistic, technical, and cultural-historical perspective. The contributions of very different tones complement each other and create new references. Texts and images invite a rediscovery of the everyday kitchen towel as a sensual object that carries much more depth beneath its seemingly ordinary surface.



Vera Roggli, Eva Wolf, Basil Linder (Editors)
Scheidegger and Spiess
Paperback, 304 pages
ISBN 9783039422814