DE/CODING TEXTILE

The exhibition DE/CODING TEXTILE. Contemporary Art Reflecting Textile Traditions brings together works by fifteen artists from nine nations that were created during the residencies organized by AFAR (Artists for Artists Residency Network) in Mulhouse (F), Maramures (RO), Bucharest (RO) and Zagreb (HR) in 2023/24. Referring to the historically influenced environment of the four production sites, the selected artists react with their individual artistic expression and in a wide variety of media. The virtual meets the analog, the smooth meets the fluffy, tradition meets deconstruction, the "typically male" meets the queer and feminist, the deadly serious meets pop humor. 

AFAR artists: Yasmina Assbane (BE), Yana Bachynska (UA), Željko Beljan (HR), Bik Van der Pol (Liesbeth Bik and Jos Van Der Pol, NL), Tanja Boukal (A), Anetta Mona Chișa (RO), Larisa Crunțeanu (RO), Megan Dominescu (RO), Bernhard Frue (A), Aurora Kiraly (RO), Zoya Laktionova (UA), Kamruzzaman Shadhin (BGD), Iza Tarasewicz (PL), Christina Zurfluh (CH)

Curated by Maria Christine Holter

Accompanying the exhibition, the VIENNA TEXTILE TALKS (20 September 2024) will feature top-class guests who will explore the question of why textiles are increasingly gaining ground in contemporary art (10:30 Herstory: Ein Gespräch über Feminismus in der Textilkunst, Maria C. Holter im Gespräch mit Tanja Boukal) and what contribution the positions represented in the FACTORY can make to the current art discourse. 

^{Artists for Artists Residency Network (AFAR) is an EU co-funded project, aiming to improve the mobility of contemporary visual artists and curators in the four European partner regions – Romania, Germany, Croatia, and Austria. The project is led by the Romanian Association for Contemporary Art (ARAC) with three consortium partners – The Goethe Institute network, the Croatian Association of Fine Artists, and the Künstlerhausvereinigung Vienna. An associate strategic partner of the project is La Kunsthalle Mulhouse which is also the Centre d’Art Contemporain d’Intérêt National de la Ville de Mulhouse. The exhibition DE/CODING TEXTILE. Contemporary Art Reflecting Textile Traditions will be continued after Vienna in an adapted form in Zagreb (curated by Josip Zanki) and Bucharest (curated by Anca Poterasu). More information on the websites of AFAR www.afarnetwork.com and the partner institutions.}