TEXTILE TAKEOVER 2025
Textile Takeover is annual project curated by Ragna Froda and Emily Stoddard at Scandinavia House, featuring workshops, talks, and an exhibition. The exhibition, Interwoven: Nordic Knits & Crochet in Contemporary Art and Design, was curated by Ragna Froda.
Knitting and crochet had long been woven into the cultural fabric of the Nordic countries. Rooted in centuries of tradition, these skills were commonly learned from a young age and remained part of school curriculums. Once essential for creating warm garments to endure long winters, they were now passed on as a cultural tradition, keeping the craft alive across generations.
Knitting with yarn began to appear in contemporary art during the 1960s and 1970s, amid the rise of the fiber art movement. This period challenged the traditional hierarchy that placed crafts such as knitting in the realm of “low art” beneath painting or sculpture. Within a wave of feminist practice, knitting and crochet shifted from the domestic sphere into the realm of creative and political expression, becoming tools for storytelling, resistance, and experimentation.
By the time of the exhibition, Nordic artists and designers continued to push this legacy forward, expanding the possibilities of textile-making beyond its utilitarian roots. Their works explored form, structure, and surface, sometimes embracing traditional techniques, sometimes dismantling them to invent new approaches. Materials ranged from repurposed yarns and recycled fibers to unconventional elements such as horsehair and algae-based wool harvested from Nordic waters.
In the exhibition, design and art were presented side by side, offering a lens into the many expressions of this age-old method. Knitting became more than a craft—it was a way of thinking, a tactile archive of heritage, and a continually evolving art form that inspired innovation in new fashion materials. Interwoven histories and contemporary voices met in each loop and knot, connecting past to present, necessity to imagination, and tradition to radical reinvention.
