The Cold Stitch: Exhibition of 16 Nordic artists.
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.
Curated by Ragna Froda
ARTISTS
ANDREA MAGDALENA JONSDOTTIR (Icelandic, born 1969) :
Andrea has an MA from the Iceland University of the Arts and is based in Reykjavík. She currently teaches visual art at Fjölbrautaskólinn in Breiðholt, collage in Reykjavík, Iceland. For several years she worked as an Education Coordinator at the Reykjavik Art Museum. Working with textiles and embroidery, her work explores conditions of the uncanny in domestic environments. In recent work, Andrea utilizes, her own memory notes, found text and mending.
ELLEN DYNEBRINK (Swedish, born 1986)
Ellen holds an MFA in Textile Art from HDK-Valand and lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Working primarily with patchwork, she explores textile as both a historical and aesthetic object, investigating the relationship between image, material, and the gaze. Her works originate from manipulated photographs translated into patchwork, where digital distortions, material qualities, and the repetitive process of making generate new layers of abstraction and meaning.
Ellen has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Wassaic Project, Gustavsberg Konsthall, and BIEN Textile Biennial.
HEIDI HANKANIEMI (Finnish born 1975)
Born in Ekenäs, Finland, Heidi Hankaniemi lives in New York City with a seasonal base in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. She holds a BA (Hons) in Critical Fine Art Practice from Central Saint Martins, London, and an MA in South East Asian Art History from SOAS, University of London.
Her work has been exhibited widely across Europe and the U.S., including at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and Espacio Valverde, Madrid, and is held in collections including the Turku Art Museum and Jan-Olof Mallander's collection of contemporary art. In 2024, she received the American-Scandinavian Society’sCultural Award in New York.
Alongside her fine art practice, Hankaniemi has worked extensively in the commercial arts, with projects for clients including Chanel, Swarovski, Marimekko, and Victoria's Secret, and her work has been featured in publications such as Vogue UK, Architectural Digest, and Interview magazine.
INGUNN FJÓLA INGÞÓRSDOTTIR (Icelandic, born 1976)
Ingunn Fjóla holds an MA in Fine Art (2017) and a BA in Fine Art (2007) from the Iceland University of the Arts, and lives and works in Denmark. Working across textiles, painting, drawing, and installation, she explores the structures and systems that shape human life, and the ways individuals negotiate, adapt, and transform them.
Ingunn Fjóla's work has been exhibited widely in Iceland, Denmark, Germany, and the United States, and is represented in numerous public and private collections in Iceland. Recent solo exhibitions include The Only Constant Is Change at the National Gallery of Iceland and You Are the Input at LÁ Art Museum in Hveragerði. In 2022, she received the Guðmunda S. Kristinsdóttir Art Award for Outstanding Female Artists in Iceland.
John K. Raustein (Norwegian, born 1972)
John holds an MA from Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and lives and works in Oslo. He works primarily with textile-based art, in which he explores the relationship between invisibility, exclusion, privilege, and resistance. Through sculptural and spatial installations, he combines craftsmanship with a strong conceptual approach. His works emerge from personal and collective memories, transforming sensory experiences from childhood and the present into abstract textile pieces
His work has been presented in many institutions, including Bærum Kunsthall (NO), Nordnorsk Kunstsenter (NO), Kunstnerforbundet (NO), the National Museum of Norway (NO), Zhejiang Art Museum (CN), Hå gamle prestegård (NO) and Galleri F15 (NO). His work is included in numerous private and public collections.
JOSABET WERKMÄSTER (Swedish, born 1964)
Josabet holds an MFA from Konstfackskolan, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design, and lives and works Malmö. Werkmäster has long been active in Sweden's textile art community, serving as a board member of Nordic Textile Art since 2010 and as chairwoman of the Malmö Textile Print Studio, Textiltryck Malmö, from 1999 to 2009. Her work is engaged with questions of process and direction, exploring the relationship between the small and the big world, the personal and the universal, and the ways time, memory, and everyday experience shape our lives.
KIYOSHI YAMAMOTO (Japanese - Brazilian, born 1972)
Born in Brazil to Japanese parents, Kiyoshi Yamamoto lives and works in Bergen, Norway. He holds a master's degree in art from the Bergen Academy of the Arts.
Working across sculpture, performance, fabric printing, and textile dyeing, Yamamoto explores materials that merge into larger, sensory compositions, drawing inspiration from textile designer Anni Albers and probing the relationship between colour, identity, and activism. He was awarded the Sandefjord Art Prize in 2019 and has completed public commissions including a seven-storey mural at St. Olav's Hospital in Trondheim, work for the new Hurtigruten fleet, and commissions for the University of Bergen and Tromsø University Hospital. He works as a guest lecturer and MA tutor at the University of Bergen and the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino.
LEE JENSEN (Denmark 1983)
Lee Jensen is a Danish textile artist who lives and works between Queens, New York and Copenhagen, Denmark. She creates abstract quilts and hand-sewn 3D textile pieces. Her work is rooted in her experience of place, seasonality, and memory, drawing from a life-long connection to sewing and textiles. She uses reclaimed textiles in her work and often sews and quilts by hand - a slow and meditative process.
Lee is a recipient of the Queens Art Fund (QAF) 2024 New Work Grant distributed by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), and she was also awarded participation in NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program (2023-24). She has exhibited nationally and across NYC. Lee’s work has been featured in Queens Chronicle and Hyperallergic.
MARGRETHE AANESTAD (Norwegian, born 1974)
Margrethe holds a BA in Art and Cultural Studies from the University of Stavanger, and lives and works between New York City and Stavanger. . Working primarily in drawing, painting, and sculpture, she subtly references landscape and the celestial sphere while remaining wholly non-representational.
Her work has been exhibited widely across the U.S. and Europe, including solo and duo shows at Dimensions Variable, Miami; Kunsthall Stavanger; and Open Source Gallery, NYC, as well as group exhibitions at Scandinavia House and Yi Gallery in New York, among numerous institutions in Norway. Her work is held in private collections internationally and in public commissions including the Stavanger New University Hospital, the University of Stavanger, and NYU's Clive Davis Institute.
METTE WINCKELMANN (Danish, born 1971)
Mette studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, and lives and works in Copenhagen. She works across a multidisciplinary practice that often incorporates textile installations and abstract forms, exploring negotiation, structure, and the body's physical, spiritual, and social dimensions. Through geometric patterns, layered textures, and recurring motifs such as flags and fabrics, she draws on associations with national identity and women's textile crafts to probe underlying themes of hierarchy, possibility, and limitation, often creating works in direct dialogue with the spaces that house them.
Mette’s work has been exhibited at the Changwon Sculpture Biennale, Moderna Museet in Malmö, Den Frie, Centre for Contemporary Art, and Overgaden, Institute for Contemporary Art, among others, and is held in collections including SMK, National Gallery of Denmark and HEART, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art.
NORA MARTINE HJELLE STRAND (Norwegian, born 1995)
Nora received her MA from the Bergen Academy of Art & Design in 2024, and lives and works in Bergen, Norway. Her practice centers on processing memories and emotions through physical action. This is the starting point for autobiographical textile works built through repetitive, time-consuming techniques such as weaving and hand-quilting.Nora’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Norway. She has received support from Arts & Culture Norway, Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), and Norwegian crafts.
Ragna Froda (Icelandic, born 1970)
Ragna Fróða is an Icelandic artist, designer, curator, and educator working across fashion, textile, and installation. She studied fashion and textile design in Paris (1992–1995) and later trained at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts. Her practice explores color, texture, and form through the history of textile symbols and patterns, blending craft with technology — digital embroidery, digital weaving, painted motifs, and storytelling.
Ragna ran her own fashion and textile studio in Reykjavík before spending the past fifteen years between New York, Berlin, and Reykjavík, where she served as Head of Textiles at the Reykjavík School of Visual Arts and Chair of the Icelandic Textile Association. She is now based in New York, maintaining her studio practice at Mana Contemporary while serving as Director of Edelkoort Inc. and New York Textile Month. Her work has been exhibited across Iceland, Europe, and the United States, and recognized with numerous grants for her contributions to art and culture.
Randi Samsonsen (Faroese, born 1977)
The French artist Pierre Soulages once said, "It is what I do that teaches me what I am looking for." Randi strongly relates to these words. She received her MA from Designskolen Kolding in 2012, and currently works in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands. Working with textiles, she employs physical, tactile, and sensory elements to render anthropomorphous shapes evocative of body parts. Randy incorporates a variety of needlework styles to create both soft and rough exteriors that stand, lay, or hang in space. Randi was awarded the “Art Event of The Year” by the Danish Art Critics Association in 2024 for her collaborative work, Things Matter, at Trapholt, Kolding. She is a professor at Glasir College, Tórshavn.
SUNNA SIGFRÍÐARDÓTTIR (Icelandic, born 1975)
Sunna completed a Diploma in Ceramics from Myndlistaskólinn í Reykjavík in 2022, and holds a BA in Philosophy from Háskóli Íslands (2009), She also studied painting at Myndlistaskólinn á Akureyri in 2001.
For Sunna, everything comes from nature, and everything is made from natural resources. Across her work, she draws out nature's systems through the materials she uses: thread as line in textile, colour meeting colour in her paintings, and ceramic form as a three-dimensional drawing. Central to her practice is the image of a sustainable system, one built on mutual respect and empathy for the natural environment, and a commitment to learning from its systems.
THÓRUNN ELÍSABET (Totalisa) (Icelandic, born 1952)
Thorunn Elisabet 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 costume and set designer, she has shaped the visual language of Icelandic stage and screen, earning the country's most prestigious awards for her work.
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.
VALGERÐUR BERGSDÓTTIR (Icelandic, born 1943)
Valgerður trained at the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts and the Academy of Arts in Oslo (formerly Statens Akademie) She also holds a degree in art history and art theory from the University of Iceland, studied jointly through the faculties of Icelandic and Comparative Studies and of Theology and Religious Studies.
For three decades, Valgerður taught at the Reykjavík School of Art, serving as its director for ten of those years.
Her work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions in museums and galleries across Iceland, and has appeared in group exhibitions of drawing and graphic art at venues including the National Art Museum, the Reykjavik Art Museum, Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, Malmö Konsthall, and Lützowplatz in Berlin, among others. Valgerður's work is held in museum collections in Iceland and abroad, and she has received artists' awards, exhibition fellowships, and studio and atelier residencies.
