In this workshop you will join three celebrated Nordic textile artists, Thorunn Elisabet Sveinsdottir, Nora Martine Hjelle Strand, and Andrea Magdalena Jónsdottir, all of whom work with embroidery and stitching in a range of ways, and are included in NORDIC TEXTILE TAKEOVER: The Cold Stitch. Meet them, spend time with them, and learn with them, needle in hand.

At the heart of this year’s Nordic Textile Takeover is the tradition of gathering, and learning alongside one another. Bringing embroidery back to its social roots, this workshop will create a meeting point, wherein stories and skills are shared through the act of creation.

Throughout this workshop and gathering, you will have the opportunity to engage with all three artists, learning about their respective practices, as well as different stitches and stitching techniques, experiencing the way in which the act of stitching in community can become a platform for the exchange of knowledge.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Thorunn Elisabet (Totalisa) is an artist and costume/set designer based in Reykjavik, Iceland, whose career spans more than four decades across theatre, film, and fine art. As a visual artist, Thorunn Elisabet is known for her storytelling through textiles, transforming repurposed fabrics, garments, and old cloth into large-scale quilts and sculptural works that give discarded materials new meaning and value. Her practice reflects a lifelong instinct for giving material history a second life. She has presented numerous solo and group exhibitions and is a member of both The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists and The Icelandic Actors and Drama Guild. She recently received the distinguished GRIMAN Honorary Award for both costume/set design and her curatorial work through her successful career. Her life and work have also been the subject of two published books: I Love Being Alive – A Testimony of a Unique Icelandic Artist and She Is My Sweetheart For 50 Years.

Nora Martine Hjelle Strand is a Norwegian artist based in Bergen, Norway. Her practice centers on processing memories and emotions through physical action. This is the starting point for her autobiographical textile works, which are built through repetitive, time-consuming techniques such as weaving and hand-quilting. Strand is interested in how we are connected as human beings, and how experience shapes the way we live – a theme she explores both directly, through text, and indirectly, through color and imagery. Every work begins with the personal. The finished piece becomes a physical trace of the internal process behind it: every thread holds a thought, every stitch a memory.

Andrea Magdalena Jónsdóttir is a visual artist based in Reykjavík, Iceland. Her medium is textile and in particular hand embroidery. Her work explores situations where something is not at its right place, or something is missing but at the same time it appears familiar in the context of the setting. In recent work, Andrea works with her own memory notes, found text and mending. For her, working with thread offers tactile connection with the subject, in a slow but mindful process. Andrea has a BA degree in Anthropology, she studied visual art and design at the Iceland University of the Arts and holds an MA degree in Art Education from the same university. She has worked as an education and mediation specialist at the Reykjavík Art Museum and currently she teaches visual art at Fjölbrautaskólinn in Breiðholt, collage in Reykjavík, Iceland.