'Carrier Bag Fictions': A new visual art exhibition by Mateus Domingos

About Modern Painters, New Decorators
Modern Painters, New Decorators is an artist-led organisation running a gallery, shop and studios from a shopping centre in Loughborough, East Midlands, UK. We believe that artists can positively impact where we live and why we live there. We make visual art projects, community workshops and creative networks.

About Mateus Domingos
Mateus Domingos is an artist and writer based in Leicester. He is interested in text, narrative and the use of digital spaces. He has made games, websites, 3D prints and fictional alphabets. His research focuses on experimental artist-networks, workshops and tool-building. He explores alternative web protocols and shared computing within the context of care and ecology. He is currently a researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image, a research centre based in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at London South Bank University. He has been a producer for Phoenix, Leicester and is a member of Two Queens, Leicester.

About 'Carrier Bag Fictions'
'Carrier Bag Fictions' is an exhibition by Mateus Domingos featuring textiles, drawings and text inspired by Loughborough’s Luddite history. In the 19th Century, technology transformed the work of textiles worker. The Luddites were a group of workers who resisted these changes through refusal, sabotage and threatening letters. Through workshops, Mateus hosted conversations about today's digital technologies. Working with young people, a zine was constructed using Luddite letters and computer magazines. A collective net was made with families, gently weaving together histories of textiles, automation and social networks. These sessions have developed and informed the exhibition, drawing on communication and technology themes alongside Loughborough’s unique history. The show's title is inspired by the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin, who redefined technology as a cultural carrier bag rather than a weapon of domination. The project is funded by Arts Council England and Leicestershire County Council.