NORDIC TEXTILE TAKEOVER
This past weekend, The Scandinavian House, in collaboration with New York Textile Month, hosted the second edition of NORDIC TEXTILE TAKEOVER, a comprehensive program combining exhibition, talks, and workshops dedicated to contemporary Nordic textiles. Inside the Scandinavian House gallery, visitors had the opportunity to attend artist talks, curator-led walkthroughs, a reception, and hands-on workshops, with special attention given to the work of recent textile art graduates from the Textilhögskolan in Borås.
New York Textile Month (NYTM) is an annual citywide festival that celebrates textiles in all their forms. Each September, it offers a rich calendar of events, fostering dialogue between designers, artisans, scholars, and industry professionals, while also engaging the public in rediscovering the cultural and material significance of textiles in contemporary life. NORDIC TEXTILE TAKEOVER is an international collaboration project co-curated by Ragna Froda (ISL/US), Director of New York Textile Month, and Emily Stoddart (CA), Manager of Exhibitions and Community Programs at the Scandinavian House in New York, with support from the Icelandic Craft Council.
The participating artists in this edition included: Randi Samsonsen (Faroe Islands), Isabel Berglund (Denmark), Álfrún Pálmadóttir (Iceland), Ása Bríet (Iceland), Ásta Gudmundsdottir (Iceland), Kamilla Kuszon (Denmark), Astrid Brøndgaard Jensen (Denmark), Ýr Jóhannsdóttir (Iceland), Högna Sól Thorkelsdóttir (Iceland), Olivia Maj Ballentyne (Sweden), Halla Ármansdottir (Iceland), Juha Vehmaanperä (Finland), Kiyoshi Yamamoto (Norway), Karlssonwilker, Inc. (Iceland/New York), Hildur Hákonardóttir (Iceland), and Sigrún Hlín Sigurðardóttir (Iceland).
The exhibition Interwoven curated by Ragna Froda takes as its starting pointtakes as its starting point Hildur Hákonardóttir’s 1971 knitted wool piece Red Thread (Knotted Breasts) to trace the evolution of Nordic textile art over the decades. While in the 1970s and 1980s knitting and crochet were closely linked to feminist practice and political expression, today these mediums continue to carry strong social and cultural resonance, while also embracing material innovation and sustainability. For centuries, knitting and crochet have been integral to the cultural fabric of the Nordic countries. Once essential for surviving long winters, these skills are still taught from childhood and preserved as cultural traditions. With the rise of fiber art, these techniques expanded beyond the domestic sphere to claim a place within the art world, challenging established hierarchies and opening new avenues for storytelling, resistance, and experimentation.
Contemporary Nordic artists and designers carry this legacy forward, pushing its boundaries: they explore form, structure, and surface—sometimes preserving traditional methods, other times forging entirely new approaches. Materials range from recycled yarns to unconventional fibers such as horsehair or seaweed harvested from Nordic waters. The exhibition demonstrates how art and design can coexist, transforming knitting and crochet from tactile archives of cultural memory into tools of research, innovation, and sustainable practice. Interwoven highlights the threads that connect past and present, showing how every stitch and knot can reflect social, environmental, and material concerns—charting the evolution of Nordic textile practices from political and feminist roots to today’s explorations of creativity, sustainability, and imagination.
