At the end of February, the Textile Centre Haslach, in cooperation with the European Textile Network, is once again offering three artists the chance to realise their individual projects as part of an artist-in-residence stay.

We received many interesting applications and it was not easy to select three of these unique artists. But now we are delighted to present the three selected artists and to welcome them to Haslach in February:

• Dobby weaving: Khristina Vysotskaya
• Tufting: Katerina Nakou
• Jacquard weaving: Leonie Burkhardt

We would like to briefly introduce the three artists below:

Khristina Vysotskaya (Schaftweberei)

Born in Minsk, Belarus, in 1992 Khristina Vysotskaya received her diploma in textile art from the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in 2015 (BSSA).

Khristina is constantly exploring the field of hand weaving and experimental textile art, creating soft sculptures and art objects. Her artworks have been presented on large art shows all around the world and she is the 2nd Prize Winner of the WORLD EXPO AWARD in the nomination “Best Elements and Details” of World Expo 2020 (Dubai, UAE, 2022), the Finalist of the Pre Bienal WTA (Chile, 2020 ) and already received other awards.

In her stay in Haslach, she will work on her project "Forest of Rushniks", which combines the topic of Belarusian ritual towels "rushnik" with the topic of the forest and the symbolic meaning of trees for Belarusians.

Katerina Nakou (Tufting)

Katerina Nakou studied textile design at Reutlingen University in Germany and is about to complete her Master's degree in Fine Art Conception. She has already participated in several international exhibitions (Korea, Greece and Germany) and worked on international projects.

Katerina would like to use her stay in Haslach for creative exploration and integrate the resulting works into her Master's thesis in Textile Art. Her idea is to integrate the tufted fabric into the design - to dye and embroider it and to see it, together with the tufted pieces, as part of the visual work, not just as a support for the artwork.

Leonie Burkhardt (Jacquard Weaving)

Leonie Burkhardt did her Bachelor's degree in Textile Design at HAW Hamburg and her Master's degree at the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås. Since 2020 she is a freelance textile designer and artist and works for example for JongeriusLab. She was already part of international exhibitions such as Dutch Design Week, Milan Design Week and MKG Hamburg.

In her practical Master's thesis she focused on three-dimensional weaving at the industrial jacquard loom. For this, she wove several layers and used synthetic yarn that shrinks when exposed to heat. The result was zero-waste sculptural, three-dimensional forms. In her residency in Haslach she would like to to further develop her research.