Continue This Thread. Karim Adduchi x Tess van Zalinge - New exhibition on the power of crafts at Amsterdam Museum

Continue This Thread shows the power of crafts in over a hundred textile objects. Adduchi and Van Zalinge collaborated with the Amsterdam Museum's curator of Fashion and Popular Culture, Roberto Luis Martins, and show visitors how they use handicraft techniques. The exhibition connects (historical) objects from the Amsterdam Museum's collection with intriguing creations by Adduchi and Van Zalinge. It also offers a stage to various makers from the city who apply handwork techniques in innovative ways.

Embroidery, patchwork and knitting: these are age-old techniques from which many people draw strength. In times of conflict, of mourning, of resistance but also in moments of joy. Applying handicraft techniques has for centuries brought people together and provided tools for expressing and processing feelings. At the same time, the knowledge of many techniques, such as lace-making and darning, is in danger of being lost. How can this knowledge be transferred and (re)inspire us to connect, express and heal? Continuous This Thread is an invitation by Adduchi and Van Zalinge to visitors to be inspired by classic craft techniques.

Van Zalinge: "During our first visit to the Amsterdam Museum's depot, Karim and I 'accidentally' found a harmonica-shaped storage folder containing 97 craftsmen's proofs from the late 19th century. Apart from the fact that the maker was one Ms Rochemont, very little else was known about it. Why had she made this? Why did she choose these techniques? How long was she working on this? Did she go into fashion after this? It inspired us to give the faces and stories behind handicrafts a stage and to look for the stories of then - and now."

"Continue this thread, so: pick up the thread and embroider!" adds Adduchi to his fellow guest curator: "We ourselves experience in our work that practising crafts connects people, can be used to express an (activist) message and has a healing power. We want to convey this to the public in the exhibition. With the exhibition, we want to introduce various target groups, of all ages, with refreshing perspectives on handicrafts and activate visitors to (re)discover and apply handicraft techniques."

The first three rooms of the exhibition focus on the voices behind textile works. Through works by Adduchi and Van Zalinge, visitors are introduced to the designers' working and thinking methods. By Adduchi, works such as the Freedom Dress (2021) on show and Van Zalinge's looks from her recently launched 'natural' collection, among others. Visitors are invited to literally and figuratively zoom in on details. For instance, visitors can use a magnifying glass and digital to take a closer look and study the techniques used by the designers. Visitors then delve into the stories behind the material. Who are the makers of the centuries-old samplers, darning and showpieces from the Amsterdam Museum's collection? And what contemporary Amsterdam stories are connected to them? The exhibition then shows how communities and clubs arose from the need to come together through needle and thread. The connecting power of needlework is at the heart of this exhibition. Exhibits include the Social [Distancing] Fabric in which some 200 participants worked with Karim Adduchi and The World Makers to create a collective embroidery in response to the March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.

Rooms four to seven focus on the activating power that craft techniques can offer. Whether expressing a political point of view as a form of resistance, or finding comfort, peace and strength in difficult times. Here, historical and contemporary fashions, banners and rags show how craft techniques are translated into social needs. On display, for example, is an embroidered banner made by the Women's Suffrage Association at the beginning of the last century. And a knitted doll used by its maker to tell a poignant story from a prison in Tehran, Iran.

Visitors will be introduced to the exhibition Continue This Thread then immersed in a 'healing space'. This space focuses on the healing power of crafts. On display are three bedspreads made by family members of creators of the exhibition. Luis Martins: "Precisely because we want and hope that visitors in the exhibition will connect with each other, I think it is important to also share something of my own. My mother finished this bedspread after my father died. It helped her heal." Amsterdam-based performer and sound artist OTION (Guillermo Blinker, 1987) was inspired by the sounds of crafts and created the sound installation 'Woven Song' (2023) where he explores the healing power of craft sounds.

The final rooms of the exhibition zoom in on the applicability of craft techniques. Van Zalinge and Adduchi show how they have made centuries-old knowledge their own. For instance, for the Patchwork collection (van Zalinge, 2020), Van Zalinge took inspiration from the post-war Liberation skirt, two of which are in the Amsterdam Museum's collection.

In the final space, visitors explore the 'Modemuze Lab', which was created in collaboration with the fashion network Modemuze. Globally, craft knowledge and skills for creating and cherishing clothes are disappearing. Think of techniques such as embroidery, darning and stiffening. How can we ensure that age-old techniques become more accessible and transferable for future generations? How can digital techniques such as 3D scanning or 360-degree photography help? In this space, visitors are invited to reflect on historical knowledge and craft with a view to the future.

An exhibition on crafts would not be complete without the opportunity for visitors to roll up their own sleeves. Part of the exhibition is therefore deliberately unfinished. Visitors are invited to literally and figuratively get involved. In the 'Leave a Leaf' space, visitors can add their own embroidered, knitted or crocheted leaf to a collective textile installation. Taking your own craft home is also allowed.

The Amsterdam Museum also offers workshops to accompany the exhibition. In the in the participatory education and audience programme of Continue This Threadvisitors, and the public outside the museum, also have an active role.

The exhibition Continue This Thread in the Amsterdam Museum on the Amstel was designed by young architectural talent Quita Schabracq, under the supervision of Studio L A. As a freelance architect, she provided design, drawing, and construction supervision for several art fairs, including TEFAF Maastricht, TEFAF New York, Art Basel Miami and Art Basel Hong Kong.

Listed by Forbes in the '30 under 30' Europe and Middle East list, winner of the Amsterdam Culture Business Award and winner of the second prize of the prestigious Vogue Fashion Prize for Arab talent in 2021; Karim Adduchi has been making waves in the fashion world in recent years. In particular, the common thread in his creations is translating the artisanal techniques from his native Morocco into couture. Leading the way are the encounters and connections he works out with communities or young artisans, from co-creations with makers from refugee backgrounds to a global network he creates with the Social [Distancing] Fabric activated to embroider at the beginning of the corona pandemic. For Adduchi, the arts are a reason for togetherness and connection between communities in an increasingly disconnected society.

In addition to his presentation in Maison Amsterdam (2021), Adduchi has previously collaborated with the Amsterdam Museum. For instance, together with The World Makers, he presented the Social [Distancing] Fabric in the courtyard of the Amsterdam Museum in 2021 and was one of the featured designers at the fashion exhibition Fashion Statements (2019).

With collaborations with the World Wildlife Fund and Master Coupeur, Tess van Zalinge illustrates her interest in reviving and celebrating historical heritage and translating it into sustainable designs. For example, she draws inspiration from traditional regional costume or techniques such as patchworking, which she translates into contemporary designs.

Recently, Van Zalinge presented her latest collection 'natural', as part of Amsterdam Art Week 2022, among the artworks at the Amsterdam Museum. For this collection, she became fascinated by the recognisability and mutability that nature brings. Connecting to the collection, Van Zalinge and the Amsterdam Museum organised several 'Co-Labs' events where visitors were invited to get started with crafts.

From eighteenth-century dressing gowns à la française and a children's suit worn in the anti-authoritarian Kresj to collections by Fong Leng and Puck & Hans and outspoken creations by Bas Kosters and Mohamed Benchellal; the Amsterdam Museum has a multifaceted fashion and textile collection consisting of around 10,000 objects. The Amsterdam Museum tries to show its fashion collection to the general public as often as possible - textiles are very fragile and can therefore be exhibited to a limited extent. In 2017, for instance, the museum, together with the recently deceased Hans Kemmink and his wife Puck, created the exhibition Puck & Hans: Couture Locale. In this first retrospective of the fashion pioneers, a picture of the era was created using their designs from the Amsterdam Museum's collection and those of many private individuals.

In 2019, the Amsterdam Museum presented a comprehensive fashion exhibition entitled Fashion Statements. That exhibition featured over 75 historical costumes, each of which was used by its wearer to express themselves or convey a message. Six contemporary designers - Marga Weimans, Patta, Ninamounah, Art Comes First, Bas Kosters and Karim Adduchi - took a contemporary look at the masterpieces from the Amsterdam Museum's costume collection and showed their own modern designs.

In 2021, the Amsterdam Museum teamed up with De Nieuwe Kerk for another fashion exhibition: Maison Amsterdam. The exhibition featured more than 70 masterpieces from the Amsterdam Museum's costume collection. Leading makers also gave their own perspective and insights on the fashion collection in this exhibition. The exhibition lead to two additions to the Amsterdam Museum's collection: an ensemble featuring a contemporary interpretation of the patchwork technique by Van Zalinge and the Freedom Dress From Adduchi.