About the exhibition

MOHA Research Center presented the exhibition “With the thread and a needle, In the loom of the daily aesthetics“, which took place at the Mohammed Ali’s Museum from May 20 to June 30, 2022. The collection consisted of embroidery pieces in costumes, carpets, textiles and everyday objects from the Museum of Greek Cappadocian Culture in Nea Karvali and the Lyceum of Greek Women of Kavala.

There is no other material, apart probably from the ceramics, humans have had closer daily contact than the textiles. The Eastern Mediterranean is a region of immense density and depth of civilizations. With continuities and upheavals, with its own raw materials, but with imported as well, such as silk and cotton. All kinds of groups and societies who lived and live in the region got dressed for days of work and days of celebration and furbished spaces; spaces of daily use and worship.

Domestic and public attire pieces, decorative fabrics; home decoration items composed the exhibition in the Konak of Kavalali Mehmet Ali Pasa in Kavala. A combination of textiles, materials (wool, cotton, silk, velour, felt etc), with different kinds of stitches (counted and free), local or widespread, they represented great variety indicating the richness of human creativity in the aesthetics of the daily setting simultaneously a number of issues. Tradition or innovation; East-West relations; ethnicity and religion in artistic expression; is there a future for embroidery and weaving in the time of fast clothing and mass production, as spaces and options for creativity and environmental care?