The Semiotic Transformation of Silk Fiber in Contemporary Soft Sculpture

Abstract

Silk fiber has become an increasingly significant medium in contemporary soft sculpture due to its rich historical associations and distinctive sensory qualities. In current artistic practice, it is used not only as a material form but also as a carrier of cultural memory, emotional experience, and symbolic meaning. Grounded in Roland Barthes’ semiotic framework, this study adopts a qualitative case study approach combined with visual analysis to examine selected contemporary silk-based sculptures across different cultural contexts. It explores how silk fiber moves from sensory materiality to symbolic meaning and ultimately to mythic cultural narrative. The findings indicate that the softness, translucency, and pliability of silk fiber actively engage embodied perception and stimulate psychological projection, evoking themes of belonging, memory, displacement, and resilience. As these sensory experiences accumulate, silk fiber becomes integrated into socially constructed mythic structures, through which abstract ideas such as cultural transmission, healing, and collective identity are naturalized. In this process, soft sculptural works function not merely as spatial objects, but as mediating forms that connect individual experience with shared cultural imagination.By tracing the transformation of silk fiber from signifier to myth, this study contributes to material semiotics and contemporary sculpture studies by proposing a framework for understanding how soft materials generate cultural meaning. It also highlights the potential of silk fiber in constructing effective and culturally sustainable narratives within contemporary art.