Nordic museum exhibition celebrates textile craft history
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The Nordic Museum in Sweden will open a major exhibition called “Trådar” (Threads) early next year, bringing together around 400 textiles, tools, photographs, and films to explore the history of fabric and clothing.
The exhibition draws on the museum’s own collections and loans from institutions in the United States, Italy, Greece, and other Nordic countries.
Sanne Houby-Nielsen, chair of the Nordic Museum Foundation, described the exhibition as a way to address contemporary issues around sustainability, overconsumption, and the value of craftsmanship. A key feature of “Trådar” will be ancient Greek vases, including a 2,500-year-old lekytos oil flask from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This vase, created by the Amasismaler, a Greek potter and vase painter, depicts girls and women at a loom, an image considered highly important in textile history research.
The exhibition also connects these ancient motifs with Nordic and Arctic objects, such as looms from Sweden, Norway, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. Houby-Nielsen hopes the exhibition will also highlight the historically undervalued role of women in textile production, showcasing their essential contributions to both society and the home, and encourage visitors to reconsider their relationship with textiles and the work behind them.
