Scandinavia House, in partnership with New York Textile Month, is pleased to present the third iteration of NORDIC TEXTILE TAKEOVER, an exhibition, workshop series, and symposium highlighting contemporary Nordic Textiles, coinciding with NY Textile Month in New York City. Featuring an exhibition in the Scandinavia House gallery, the program includes artist talks, a reception, and hands-on workshops. The exhibition opens on Friday, September 4, to Wednesday, September 16, 2026.
Please join us from September 8-September 16 for three workshops with a diverse range of celebrated Nordic textile artists! Learn to weave a basket with Lelia Bacchi using sustainable materials on September 8 at 5:30 PM; explore the art of handstitching in an afternoon guided by Nora Martine Hjelle Strand, Thorunn Elisabet Sveinsdottir, and Andrea Magdalena Jónsdóttir (September 13, 12-4 PM); and create your own extravagant bloom brooch using vintage embroideries with Heidi Hankaniemi (September 16, 3-6 PM).
NORDIC TEXTILE TAKEOVER is a Nordic textile 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 Scandinavia House, New York. Support has been provided by the Icelandic Craft Council.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The Cold Stitch
In the Nordic countries, stitching has long been more than decoration or domestic craft. It is a necessity, a form of storytelling, survival, memory, and care. In landscapes shaped by cold climates and long winters, textiles have become vessels of warmth, protection, repair, and continuity, carrying traces of everyday life and cultural identity across generations.
THE COLD STITCH brings together artists from across Scandinavia whose practices engage with textiles as both material and language. Through quilting, patchwork, collage, weaving, hand embroidery, sculptural textiles, and visible and invisible stitching, this exhibition explores how textile traditions have continued to evolve within contemporary art. The exhibition’s title refers both to the geography of the North, the relationship with textiles and the act of stitching itself.
A stitch repairs, connects, layers, and transforms. It binds fragments together while allowing histories, emotions, reflections on the political climate, and personal narratives to remain visible. Echoing this feature, many of the works in the exhibition embrace reuse and transformation, giving discarded fabrics, garments, yarns, and textile remnants new meaning through the artistic process.
THE COLD STITCH celebrates textile art as a living and evolving practice deeply rooted in the cultures of the North, where there is a strong tradition of working with textiles as an art form and where stitching continues to mend, preserve, and reimagine the world around us.