In 2022, the International Festival of Unusual Textiles celebrates the first decade of its existence with two ambitious exhibitions – produced in partnership with the Guimarães Textile Biennale – which will take place from 17 September to 26 March in Clermont-Ferrand.
A week of festive opening (September 20-25) extended by two exhibitions starting on September 17 and ending on March 26, 2023: FITE – the International Festival of Unusual Textiles – celebrates its 10th anniversary in Clermont-Ferrand, the heart of central Massif. A collective project involving civil society, schools, businesses and the cultural world, FITE multiplies uniqueness. According to its co-organizers (the HS_Projets Association created in 2008 by textile professionals and enthusiasts; the Bargoin Museum, the new Métropole Clermont Auvergne and the city of Clermont-Ferrand), this first and last festival is the world’s only international textile festival to stand up for human rights and for global mobility Organized between France and another continent.
Its objectives are multiple: to identify and share social and political issues in the world through the medium of fabric as a priority, to create exchanges between creators and the public, and to encourage proposals for cultural expressions among the largest number in the public space. Another implicit goal is to put Clermont-Ferrand in the spotlight on the international textile scene. This new edition was developed under the auspices of Rossi de Palma, titled Imagine! It will revolve around two mirrored fairs, produced in partnership with Contextile – the Guimarães Textile Biennial – as part of the 2022 France-Portugal crossover season.
A neoclassical building opened in 1903 in the heart of the city, the Bargoin Museum presents particularly rich and innovative collections. The Department of Archeology presents the history of human societies in Basse-Auvergne, from the Paleolithic to the Gallo-Roman period thanks to a chronological and thematic approach. Since 1993, its textile division has acquired a textile heritage outside Europe with the goal of physically preserving it in the face of globalization while allowing the widest audience to access its richness of meaning. It is here that an exhibition will be held Imagine! From September 17 to March 26, 2023. Which will present an original collection of more than 50 exceptional works in textile and multimedia, curated by Christine Bullock and Charlotte Croissant.
Valuable engagement with Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė, artist and head of the textile department at the Academy of Arts in Vilnius, as well as with the National Museum of Lithuania and with the support of the Lithuanian Cultural Institute. Indeed, the works of 15 artists from Lithuania and the Baltic states will also be on display.
These exchanges announce the upcoming tour of the festival in Lithuania in the summer of 2023. The exhibition will highlight products emerging from emblematic figures in the textile art scene: think of the Dutch Gouda Koster or the Portuguese Joanna Vasconcelos in particular. Among the pieces on display is the unpublished work “Majah”, produced by Moroccan artist Amina Akizni for FITE, in which Moroccan women worked by winding woolen threads onto metal rod supports.
Another masterpiece: The Abduction of Europe according to Titian by Benin artist Romeo Miffkanen who builds a post-colonial discourse from the masterpieces of Western painting where he discreetly places his self-portrait. Igloo Redikito’s work reproduces textile motifs, especially those on the floor (carpets and tiled floors) to place them vertically facing the spectators. Thus, the Lithuanian seized the memory of the places associated with the ghetto in Vilnius that have now disappeared
Contemporary French and Portuguese creativity at the Musée d’Art Roger-Quilliot
In imagine! At the Bargouin Museum, in the mirror and on the same dates, the exhibition From Skin to Skin responds at the Roger-Quilliot Museum of Art, Clermont-Ferrand’s Museum of Fine Arts located in the former Ursulin Abbey. It presents on six levels collections of paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, including masterpieces by Chassereau, Dori, Bartholdi and Fragonard. Curated by Claudia Melo and Pauline Gutin, the exhibition unveils 25 textile works produced by young French and Portuguese designers. We will particularly admire L’ile du Dome, an unpublished work by Hugo Brazau produced as part of the artist’s residency within the Ennery Confection located in Le Puy-en-Velay. The work presents a mapping of the Massif Central after the waters swept across the plains and valleys.
