Exhibition by Bronwen Jones, Dasha Golova, Élise Ory
With workshops by Elia Castino & Chiron Floris
17 - 26 July 2026
Location: PuntWG, WG Plein, Amsterdam
Opening: Friday 17 July 5-9pm
Exhibition opening hours: Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays 18-26 July 12-6pm (or by appointment)
We are very happy to announce our upcoming exhibition and workshop series Gathering & Unravelling at PuntWG between 17-26 July. Textile Initiative is an artistic research platform and event series, organised by artists Bronwen Jones and Dasha Golova, that expands the potential of textile craft by relating it to contemporary societal themes.
The exhibition gathers new individual works by Bronwen Jones, Dasha Golova, and Élise Ory, drawing on their experiences with the communal nature of textile craft practices, whilst exploring their own curiosities through material. Through processes of unravelling, composing, reformulating, tending, and trusting, the artists explore the potential of textile material to uncover hidden stories, meanings, and values. Working with sensitivity and attentiveness, they explore themes of memory and ephemerality, the mundane and everyday, and the ways new material languages can emerge through dialogue between materials and hands.
The workshops, led by Elia Castino and Chiron Floris, invite us to gather and enjoy the long summer evenings, bringing us in touch with craft traditions that mark time, connect us with the rhythms of the natural world and the joys of communal making. With Elia, we will make a collective woollen mattress for daydreaming together; with Chiron, we will learn the intricate knots and decorative techniques of Filet di Bosa and explore the meanings behind the motifs of this centuries-old technique.
You are also invited on Sundays (19, 26) to bring your broken and loved garments, or home textiles, and learn techniques to repair them whilst sharing stories and time together.
Find more information below, and sign up quickly if you’d like to join the workshops of Elia or Chiron on Saturday afternoons, stretching into summer evenings.
Workshops:
Daydream Drifting – A Woollen Mattress-making Workshop with Elia Castino
Saturday 18 July 3-8pm
Sign up here!
Sleeping in solitude has become one of the quiet habits of our age, yet for much of human history, the bed was not a place of retreat but of gathering. Ancient records reveal sleeping landscapes brimming with humanity, where kings and paupers alike surrendered to the night in shared proximity.
Over the course of an afternoon, we will return to this forgotten sense of togetherness and turn our attention to the making of a mattress. Through the gentle rhythm of hands and stitches, tales and silences, naps and reveries, we will craft a vessel using wool and cotton canvas. No prior knowledge is needed but comfortable clothes might help you work from the ground.
Widening the edges of sleep, allowing ourselves to drift into a threshold realm where times intermingle and memories brush against imaginings, what emerges will become a landscape for choral reveries or solitary wanderings: a soft horizon for travelling through time, a silent companion, a valley of daydreams.
Elia Castino (°1992, IT) is an artist exploring an idea of inhabiting and homemaking that extends beyond the confines of the house. Drawing materials from the rural places of his upbringing and the urban world of his daily life, he practices an inventiveness that arises from the relationship with what already exists within the contexts he operates in. He lives in a stilt house on a mud island surrounded by a silver river in between Brussels and the North-Western Italian countryside.
Lace and Long Summer Evenings – A Filet di Bosa Workshop with Chiron Floris
Saturday 25 July 4-8pm
Sign up here!
Filet di Bosa, or Randa ‘Osinca, is a centuries-old textile technique from Sardinia based on the creation of a knotted net and its decoration. During her research in Sardinia, Chiron was introduced to this technique and learned its foundations through an apprenticeship with the artisans of Associazione La Foce in Bosa. Since then, the technique has remained an integral part of her practice, shaped by an ongoing exchange with the artisans of La Foce and a continued process of learning.
This workshop centres on making together and discovering this craft during a long summer evening. Together, we will learn the foundational techniques of Filet di Bosa, including knotting the net, decorating it with the characteristic motifs that give the technique its distinctive character, and exploring the meanings behind these motifs.
Drawing on her own relationship with the technique, Chiron invites us to experience the relational nature of handwork and to explore how making together can create space for connection. This workshop is an introduction to a traditional, living craft and an invitation to make together. A summer gathering through handwork.
Chiron Floris explores how traditional crafts and materials can find a place within contemporary applications, contributing to a more sustainable fashion landscape while maintaining their value as carriers of community and cultural knowledge. Her practice is informed by ongoing research in Sardinia, rooted in a personal family history, where she reflects on themes of memory, relationships, and belonging through textile crafts. She works with various handcraft techniques, including Filet di Bosa, a textile technique she learned in Bosa, Sardinia, and continues to explore through her work. For her, Filet di Bosa offers a way to continue and deepen her connection to Sardinia while contributing to the technique's ongoing transmission through practice and research. Central to her approach is the development of workshops centred on textile crafts and knowledge sharing.
Patching & Mending Drop in with Bronwen Jones, Dasha Golova, Élise Ory
Sunday 19 & 26 July 12-6pm
This event is free, just drop in on the day!
You are invited to bring your broken and loved garments, or home textiles, and learn techniques to repair them while sharing stories and time with others. The exhibition artists (Bronwen Jones, Dasha Golova, Élise Ory) can show you different repair or decorative techniques, including darning, sashiko, and embroidery, to give new life to your textiles.
Materials will be provided – just bring a garment/textile to work on.
This exhibition and workshop series is kindly supported by Amsterdams fonds voor de kunst, Gemeente Amsterdam West, and Iona Stichting.