tracing aegean textiles

publication*, embroidery
2021—2022

*Self-published in small edition, 21 x 15 cm (16 pages).

How can I trace art forms that have been dismissed as folklore and women’s work? And can tracing become a form of care? This research project about 18th to 19th century Aegean embroideries started with a simple question: could I find some information for an upcoming exhibition? Triggered by the textiles’ special motifs, colors, and compositions, as well as the fragmentary information available about them, I got curious.

Why do the motifs differ so much from island to island? What do they signify? What role did these textiles play in the lives of Greek women? How did they end up in the collections of British and American museums? And why are there so many fragments? To get a feeling for the different motifs, I took a black marker and started tracing their outlines. In an attempt to reanimate them (to care), I created a publication and printed the motifs on cloth. At the State of Fashion Biennale 2022, I invited the audience to sit down with me and embroider the cloth together.

Photos of the publication. Combined with photos from the live embroidery session.

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I am a textile artist, researcher, and writer based in Amsterdam. Through my work runs a tangible thread that is spun from questions about materials, hierarchies, traditions, patterns, shapes, and their relations. By means of artistic research, I aim to unravel them and investigate their potential to be interlaced in new ways.

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