With a private opening on 26 january, 2025, 4-7pm (by invitation only)
As a multidisciplinary artist with a linguistic and graphic design background, Olga often uses texts and images in her works. Looking for balance, she connects disjointed elements of different grounds in an interdisciplinary way. She works with texts, photography, mixed media, and printmaking to construct nonlinear and metaphysical narration. Olga often takes inspiration from her personal and cultural background. In recent years, clothes and textiles have influenced her artistic practice as an inspiration, as a material for printmaking, and as a source of self-study. Since 2023, clothes and textiles as material memory became a new interest and medium in Olga’s works.
Memory Cocoons is a series of textile objects that consists of old memorable clothes from Olga’s personal archives. No longer in use, these clothes capture memories of certain moments, places, or people. Some of the clothes were made by Olga herself during her school years, while others belonged to her mother.
In order to archive them with care and attention, Olga created safe cocoons for them and embroidered them with messages dedicated to each item. These messages reflect her memories of the clothes, from the time of their usage to the history of their appearance in her life, with gratitude and confessions.
Public program
During the one-day opening, more Cocoons and Textile Hands works will be presented. Textile hands are textile-based collages created from the recycled clothes of the swap shop PleinMode (the Bookstore Project). Each piece features an embroidery of hands doing traditional textile work. This aims to remind the viewer of the sources of textiles and clothing and create more appreciation for and attention to the usage of the textiles that surround us.
In addition to the exhibition, a Clothes’ Stories conversation round will be organised. Visitors are invited to bring memorable clothing items from their wardrobe and share their stories. An opportunity to make a short embroidery message on these items (like “thank you,” “I forgive you,” “love you,” or “goodbye”) will be provided. Visitors can attach these messages to their items or keep them as a reminder of the event.
Acknowledgements
Memory Cocoons is part of the Memory Clothes project, which was realised with the support of the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts) and Cultuurfonds; and with great help from assistants Romana Klementis and Kira Devoe.
