Autumn ReThread: Slow Encounters

What happens when we slow down and spend time with a museum object, attending to its colours, materials, textures and details before seeking information? How might this attentive encounter evoke feelings, memories and questions, and inspire our own creative responses?

The autumn ReThread programme, organized by the Slovenian Textile Art Biennial, will be dedicated to Slow Looking, a practice that invites us to slow down, engage attentively with what we see, and, in a time of rapidly flowing images and information, remain curious and open. Over the course of three days, we will visit museums in the Gorenjska region (Kranj, Tržič and Škofja Loka), focusing on textiles and textile objects from cultural heritage collections.

The programme is intended for gallery and museum professionals and educators, art therapists, professionals from other care and helping professions, artists and others who wish to integrate new approaches into their work with participants. It is open to anyone with a personal interest in slow looking and art response – as a way of slowing down, developing self-awareness, and discovering different ways of engaging with art, cultural heritage, and nature.

The programme will be led by Naira Bloss, Jasmina Ferček, and Matija Samec. Art therapist Naira Bloss, who develops and facilitates her Slow Looking practice at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, will lead the museum-based part of the programme together with Jasmina Ferček, an arts therapist and textile artist. The afternoon programme in nature will be led by Matija Samec, forest therapy practitioner and trainer of nature connection specialists.

The number of places is limited to 15 participants. Information about the programme, mentors and application can be found at the following link: https://layer.si/bien/en/kr/autumn-rethread/

ReThread is curated by art therapist and textile artist Jasmina Ferček. We invite you to explore highlights from the spring 2026 ReThread programme with Claire Wellesley-Smith, a geographer, researcher and textile artist form Bradford, UK, as well as the handbook developed following last year’s programme ReThread 2025 featuring contributions from art therapists Savneet Talwar, Jasmina Pacek, Oljana Karpus and other practitioners. In 2023, as an initial knowledge transfer material, BIEN produced the handbook Textile Communities as Spaces of Power and a series of interviews and lectures.