Textile, Trade and Terror

Textile, Trade and Terror (Owú. Fil. Faden. Thread.) is a multi-sensory inquiry into the entanglements of textiles with history, memory, and reclamation. It follows the trade routes of fabrics such as damask and lace, connecting geographically distant places and weaving the histories of Bregenz, Lagos, St. Gallen, Vienna, and Dakar into a polyphonic fabric of recollection, refusal, and possible futures.
At the heart of this publication lies a quilt: sixteen meters long and three meters wide, it is both artwork and method. Composed of fabrics that bear traces of colonial entanglements as well as resilience, care, and joy, the quilt assembles stories, memories, and gestures into a living archive. It bears witness to relations of power, modes of belonging, and forms of knowledge that have passed through hands, bodies, and generations.