20.06.2025 –
21.06.2025
11:00 – 18:00
COMMON THREADS: Showcasing the Outcomes of a Collaborative Project in Textile Art – Pop-up group exhibition
Pop-up exhibition following a residency of ten female artists and curators at Kunsthaus Dahlem. Textile art practices shaped by collective work processes and transcultural dialogue. With Sary Haddad, Ana Hernández, Munara Abdukakharova, Cholpon Alamanova, Aleksandra Filatova, Jessica Ostrowicz, Mariana Pende, Jenny Michel, Haleh Redjaian, Anna Schapiro
Part of the festival programme 10 YEARS – 10 DAYS! to mark the 10th anniversary of Kunsthaus Dahlem
About the Project
In the spring of 2024, Kunsthaus Dahlem devoted its exhibition space entirely to textile art for the first time in its ten-year history. This was realised through a show on Sofie Dawo (1926–2010), presented in dialogue with contemporary works by Haleh Redjaian. In post-war Germany, textile art had begun to emancipate itself from its roots in traditional craft and establish a distinct presence within the visual arts.
The autonomy of textile art, also known as fibre art, stemmed, on the one hand, from the translation of compositional and aesthetic concerns from painting, graphic art, and sculpture into this new medium and, on the other, from intensive engagement with artisanal techniques from non-European cultures. This cross-cultural dialogue is exemplified by Bauhaus artist Anni Albers’ travels to Latin America as well as American artist Sheila Hicks’ extended stay in Guerrero, Mexico.
Today, this globalised, transcultural exchange remains central to contemporary fibre art, manifested through weaving and dyeing techniques, the use of traditional patterns and motifs and more. At the same time, the practice is accompanied by critical reflection on topics such as motif and technique appropriation. This includes discussions around sustainability and upcycling, as textile production is often tied to problematic labour and environmental conditions. Gender-specific inequalities are also at play: textile art is disproportionately practised by women, which has historically led to its marginalisation in both public perception and the art discourse.
Common Threads engages with the art histories of different countries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries while also exploring the role of tradition in contemporary artistic practice. As part of this programme, artists from Mexico, Kyrgyzstan, Croatia and the United Kingdom will collaborate with Berlin-based artists Haleh Redjaian, Anna Schapiro and Jenny Michel. Together, they will create new works on site, place existing works in dialogue and curate an exhibition that will debut in Dahlem before travelling to Oaxaca, Mexico, in October 2025. There, it will be presented as part of this year’s BIENALSUR.
Under the title Common Threads, the artists will explore themes of textile and fibre art and invite visitors to participate through interactive workshops.
Location
Costs and Tickets
All anniversary events are free of charge for all visitors.
Participants – Biographies
Munara Abdukakharova is a visual artist and architect from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Her multidisciplinary practice explores forms such as embroidery, printmaking, and graphic art, often using materials like felt and everyday textiles. She blends traditional Kyrgyz techniques with contemporary themes related to urban life, environmental issues, and social pressures, working with unconventional canvases like the toshok, a traditional floor mattress. Embracing randomness in her process, Abdukakharova lets found materials guide her compositions. Her work has been exhibited in exhibitions across Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States.
Instagram: @moon_abdu
Cholpon Alamanova is an internationally exhibited textile artist from Kyrgyzstan, working in the traditional technique of kurak – a patchwork art form where fabric scraps are crafted into functional and/or decorative pieces. She founded the School of Applied Arts in Bishkek and has been teaching the technique and philosophy behind Kyrgyz kurak since 2015. Since 2021, she has been developing EcoKurak – an initiative to turn fabric waste from sewing workshops into new textile compositions. Most recently, since 2023, she has been collaborating with the University of Central Asia on the Encyclopedia of Kyrgyz Kurak, travelling across the country to discover and document both traditional and contemporary examples of this unique art form.
Instagram: @cholpon_kurak
Aleksandra Filatova is an art practitioner, researcher, and educator. As an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Narxoz University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, she engages in collaborative experimentation with students and faculty to explore visual and spatial thinking in academic environments. Her work spans contemporary art, emancipatory methodologies, and civic engagement, with a particular focus on exhibitions as pedagogical spaces. She has curated collaborative projects such as ToBeNamed Kyrgyzstan and leads SMart meetings that bring together public intellectuals, curators, and academics. Her practice is rooted in community-based research and experiential learning, informed by her long-standing involvement with international development, youth education, and feminist initiatives.
Instagram: @shuntiks
Sary Haddad is a Mexican visual artist who transforms material and symbolic waste into objects of aesthetic contemplation. She recontextualises disposable objects to explore themes of memory, masculinity, and popular culture. For her project, in which she recontextualises industrial lockers used by textile workers – considered disposable
objects – Haddad won first place in the Installation category at the 2011 Florence Biennale. In other projects, she works with abandoned factory spaces and historic doors to reveal traces of time, labour, and social history through sensual perception.
Ana Hernández is a Zapotec visual artist. Her work primarily focuses on the revival of traditional clothing from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, as well as themes of migration, geography, and identity. Using techniques such as screen printing, wood carving, and textiles, she creates pieces that connect personal interests with community knowledge exchange, highlighting the cultural richness of the Isthmus in a contemporary context. Textiles are a constant element in her practice, as she was born and raised in a family of textile artisans from Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. Hernández studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca, CEACO, and the Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca. Her works have been exhibited in Mexico, the United States, Ecuador, and Spain, among other locations.
Instagram: @hernandez.ana.hernandez
Jenny Michel lives and works in Berlin. She studied Fine Arts at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, with a focus on graphic art, installation, and video. Her multidisciplinary work combines objects, drawings, photographs, texts, and sound into complex series that approach philosophical and scientific themes with irony and ambiguity. Michel’s artistic method involves layering cartographic and other data-based information – a process that gradually transforms the pictorial space into a kind of labyrinth. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad.
Jessica Ostrowicz is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She studied Fine Arts in Dresden and Contemporary Art Practice with a focus on Critical Practice at the Royal College of Art in London. In her works on paper, installations, sculptures, and films, she engages with transgenerational trauma as well as possibilities for processing and restitution. She reflects on themes of belonging and what home means for people “who have been displaced, uprooted, or confined”. Since 2023, Ostrowicz has been working at HMP Spring Hill, a men’s prison – first as a prison lecturer, and since March 2025 as an Artist in Residence, supported by the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and the Rothschild Foundation.
Mariana Pende is a Dubrovnik, Croatia-based artist whose work explores weaving as a medium that bridges tradition, experimentation, and sound. In her practice, the loom becomes not just a tool but an instrument whose rhythm and repetition establish a dialogue between past and present. Influenced by architectural constructivism and minimalist music, she investigates visual and auditory patterns through structure, transparency, and density. In collaboration with the Faculty of Textile Technology in Zagreb, she develops projects that explore ecological approaches to weaving, connecting historical techniques with contemporary experimental processes. Currently, the inclusion of the Trgovišće Textile Factory enables the practical implementation of her concept of working on the Jacquard loom, further deepening the fusion of hand and industrial weaving within the framework of sustainable contemporary production.
Instagram: @marianapende
Haleh Redjaian is an Iranian-German visual artist whose work explores the interplay between structure and spontaneity. A central element of her work is the line – drawn, woven, or stretched as a thread through space. Many of her textile pieces take the form of tapestries, which are made according to her own designs in southern Iran. Irregularities inherent in the handmade process disrupt the strict geometries, which Redjaian further alters through embroidery or print. She studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and lives and works in Berlin. Her minimalist works are exhibited internationally.
Anna Schapiro is a visual artist, writer, and editor based in Berlin. She studied Interdisciplinary Artistic Work in Dresden, Sculpture in Porto, and Jewish Studies in Stockholm. Her visual work spans installation, sculpture, painting, and writing, with a focus on collective and site-specific approaches. A key element of her practice is the presentation of materials in their physical conditions – including textile-based projects that formally relate to sculpture. These works emerge at the intersection of traditional craft and modern technology, addressing themes such as sustainability, ecology, memory, and identity. Schapiro is a founding member and co-editor of Jalta – Positionen zur Jüdischen Gegenwart (Jalta – Positions on Jewish Presents) and part of the collective Ministeriums für Mitgefühl (Ministry of Empathy).
COOPERATION PARTNER
ARENET – The Americas Research Network: Cooperation for the Common Threads artist residency project and selected events in the LUNCH TALKS series
