A nomadic life informs Kelly Thompson’s experience as an artist, academic and researcher. Her interests are in exploring notions of location and identity, travel and material culture read through personal experiences and postcolonial discourses. She explores the role of textiles as signifiers and the intersections of age-old and 21st technologies to produce new cloth experiences, embedded with narrative content.

Californian born but New Zealand raised, Kelly Thompson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Studio Arts / Fibers and Material Practices, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada. Previously she was Head of the BA Textile program, at Goldsmiths, University of London for four years, and before that at the Otago School of Art, New Zealand. She has a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts 1985, and a MA (Visual Arts) 1994, from the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University.