Textil/e/xile

Textil/e/xile explores the connections and formations between routes of fabrics, patterns and lives. The project asks questions about experiences of exile and flight and their structural effects on work, life and material. The changes of patterns and textures in a double sense, i.e. the transformation of life as well as the change and use of textile material.

Textil/e/xile reconstructs, in collaboration with people who have arrived in Pischelsdorf (Styria), their escape routes (Nigeria-Austria, Iran-Austria, Syria-Austria, Afghanistan-Austria) and translates them into an abstract-seeming image. They all live together in a house in Pischelsdorf and share a kitchen and bathroom. Each family has a room to itself. I have worked with those who were interested in the project
textile/e/xile on a voluntary basis. The project was not only characterised by the end result, but also included significant linguistic, craft and artistic levels of mediation and their translation into an artistic work.
into an artistic work.

The image carrier is in the form of a screen, consisting of several elements covered with fabric, which visualises the escape route in an ornamental visual language and in turn translates it into the three-dimensional. As an object, the screen itself marks a border or divides a space. Through this work, the escape routes of the people who have arrived here as strangers have been translated into a visual language that can be read across communication difficulties. The symbols and colours of the means of transport used on the flight were developed and applied in cooperation with the refugees. The screens were exhibited at an exhibition in Pischelsdorf at the Kulm Cultural Association, where the refugees and the village population were able to enter into a dialogue with each other through the pictorial, abstract representation. The abstract visual language has the potential to enable an encounter without resentment and to learn something about each other in a respectful setting. The screens were also presented as part of the