The exhibition Repetitive acts: The power of weaving and textile in contemporary art, which opens on the 6th of December 2024 at the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation [NiMAC] explores the enduring power of weaving as a medium of communication, storytelling, and resistance. From ancient Peruvian textiles to contemporary Afghan War rugs, textiles have served as a silent yet eloquent transmitter of meaning and memory. This exhibition brings weaving’s legacy into the present, showing how contemporary artists from Cyprus transcend its domestic associations to become a space for political, cultural, and personal expression. The act of making, the repetitive patterns, and the ritual of repetition in the process are all equally significant.

The exhibition unpacks both the processes and meanings of contemporary reinterpretations of weaving and explores the political, cultural, and mnemonic meanings of what has been historically associated with undervalued housework or folk art. Using intricate techniques and intermedial practices (photography, drawing, sound, video, and installation), the artists in the exhibition reinvent the familiar crafts of embroidery, knitting, and weaving, blurring the lines between past and present, known and unknown, expected and unexpected. The works often challenge patriarchal structures, normative trends, and power relations. Alternative materials like luminous neon threads, unyielding basalt fibers, wire, and glass carry narratives of persistence, resilience, labor, and our connections to the land, while also examining themes of memory, gender, identity and historicity.

The section Threads, a modest nod to the latest examples of a long-standing local tradition, emphasizes weaving’s presence in the everyday. Featuring objects, archival photographic material, works by Nina Iacovou, Toula Liasi and Vassia Adamou-Vanezi, as well as interviews with weaving scholars, the section weaves the metaphorical and literal connections between this long-standing art and contemporary practice. The section is complemented by a wall-walk in homage to women who have preserved and continued this tradition while a glossary reveals the breadth of both weaving practices and the cross-cultural influences that have defined it.

In effect, Repetitive acts invites reflection on weaving and textiles not as static traditions, but as dynamic and evolving, ultimately also offering new perspectives on Cyprus’s layered histories and contemporary art practices, while reminding us of the transformative, liberating potential of this ancient yet ever-relevant art form.