Living Fabrics
With Living Fabrics, visual artist Nesa Gschwend (CH) has developed a project that puts old textiles to use. In participatory performances all over the world, she produces textile installations together with others, thus creating a fabric that surpasses personal, social, national and cultural borders.
Cast aside textiles have often been on a long journey and carry lots of stories with them. At the heart of working together with people from various age groups, nationalities and affiliations lies common experience and dialogue. During the many hours of working together with many hands, skills and stories are passed along with the fabrics.
Later, Gesa Gschwend turns the pieces of fabric into artefacts that she sews in her studio. Individual pieces are reworked, juxtaposed and joined as rugs.
This process transforms the individual pieces of textile into a coherent artistic language. As nomadic objects, as warming protection, as room dividers, as symbols and sites of rituals and traditions, Gschwend’s rugs acta s a connecting element between spaces and people.