The Event of a Thread

Global Narratives in Textiles

Textiles are at the heart of this new exhibition “The Event of a Thread. Global Narratives in Textiles”, which focuses on questions including: What inherent meanings and messages can be found in fabrics? What is their cultural significance? How can textiles be ‘read’? What can fabrics tell us about their origins, meanings and social roles? Which traditional textile techniques have artists appropriated, abstracted, relocated and brought back to life? Textiles constitute a locus in which art encounters handicraft, traditions meet the present day, and local knowledge intersects with global relationships. 

The exhibition highlights the multiple complex ways in which the participating artists work with textiles. They link personal and aesthetic narratives with the social and economic configuration of a globalized world. In 1965, Bauhaus artist Anni Albers described “the event of a thread” as something multilinear, without beginning or end: more broadly, it signifies constant scope to reassess relations and to restructure connections and contexts. 

Every part of the world can attest the complex inscription of textiles into cultural and industrial history.  At the National Gallery of Kosovo, this traveling exhibition embarks on intricately weaving narratives from various parts of the world and initiating new dialogues in the local context. Stories are deftly woven into fabrics and sculptural textiles, emphasizing the dynamic and versatile nature of fibers.

Artists: Ulla von Brandenburg, Karen Michelsen Castañón, Noa Eshkol, Andreas Exner, Uli Fischer, Zille Homma Hamid, Heide Hinrichs, Olaf Holzapfel, David Horvitz, Christa Jeitner, Elisa van Joolen & Vincent Vulsma, Blerim Luzha, Farija Mehmeti, Eva Meyer & Eran Schaerf, Sharon Lockhart, Silvi Naci, Barbara Prenka, Judith Raum, Gani Riza, Matej Rodiqi, Driton Selmani, The Bauhaus Space, Güneş Terkol, Franz Erhard Walther, Valbona Zherka

Curators: Hana Halilaj (The National Gallery of Kosovo), Inka Gressel (Head of the ifa-Gallery Berlin), Susanne Weiß (freelance curator and art historian)

In cooperation with The National Gallery of Kosovo and the German Embassy Pristina