Textile Magic with Doris Wiklund, Kristina Pashkova, Maja Fredin, and Matilda Kenttä

The exhibition Textile Magic with Doris Wiklund, Kristina Pashkova, Maja Fredin, and Matilda Kenttä brings together four very different artists that share a passion for textile materials and techniques. All four artists are particularly interested in weaving and demonstrate great skill within their craft in combination with strong conceptual capabilities. One aspect about textiles that’s so magical—both as a material and as a technique—is that they have existed for at least the past thirty-five thousand years of our human history, and they continue to be an essential part of our lives. Textiles are flexible and easy to transport and they have both practical and decorative uses. To contrast the wear-and-tear mindset of today’s textile industry, more and more young artists are turning to techniques like weaving. This opens up for a slow and methodical kind of handiwork that is dependent on material knowledge and technical skill.

The initial source of inspiration for this exhibition, and its point of departure, is the life of ninety-three-year-old Doris Wiklund from Kiruna, a craftswoman, weaving teacher, and textiles historian. Around thirty of her tapestries, tablecloths, typical Sámi wall hangings, and curtains created between the 1950s and today are displayed together with the work of three young artists who are all weavers who employ as well other textile techniques. Four of Wiklund’s books are also presented in the exhibition and together with the work of the younger artists, a dialogue is created with the textile heritage that Wiklund has been part of creating.

Matilda Kenttä, for example, quite literally weaves her way through the one hundred and twenty-six hand-drawn patterns that can be found in Wiklund’s book Det gamla linneskåpet: Från tuskaft till damast, while sitting in the exhibition space. Maja Fredin’s textile sculpture Frutti di merda, which displays thirty hand-stitched shrimps laid out on a table and three seagulls attached to a ceiling fan above, criticizes the abundance of consumer society, while Kristina Pashkova has created five intimate woven diaries. Without any predetermined plan, these tapestries emerged during the severe lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, a time during which every meeting and nearly everyday occurrence took on a special meaning, leaving traces in her work.

Textile Magic with Doris Wiklund, Kristina Pashkova, Maja Fredin and Matilda Kenttä introduces Kin’s long-standing thematic exploration of the Hand, the heart, and the brain, which explores how artists today embrace older craft techniques and rework them for current and future usage.