Exhibition 'Steekhoudend' in Museum van de Vrouw
In Steekhoudend, the power of contemporary textile art takes center stage. Four artists show how textiles today are a versatile medium through which personal and social stories are made tangible.
The starting point of the exhibition is a selection of historical household textiles from the museum collection: embroidered laundry bags, towels, tablecloths, and samplers from the period 1900–1970. These items, once made by women for everyday use, serve as a source of inspiration and material for new artistic interpretations.
From heritage to contemporary art
The artists transform this heritage into contemporary artworks. Through reuse, intervention, and addition, new works emerge in which themes such as identity, care, gender, and the role of women across time become visible. The past is not only preserved but actively questioned and reconfigured.
Mia Meijers: an impactful voice
An important voice in the exhibition is Mia Meijers. In her textile work and paintings, she explores socially sensitive themes such as child abuse, domestic violence, and motherhood. Her recent work focuses on the aging woman and offers a powerful, personal insight into this stage of life.
Unique new works
In addition, Joyce Overheul, Karin van der Linden, and Roos Roberts present new works created especially for this exhibition. They all worked from the same starting point: an existing tablecloth transformed into an autonomous artwork. Each approaches the material from a different perspective, resulting in diverse and surprising interpretations.
Steekhoudend shows how vibrant textile art is today. It demonstrates how craft, reuse, and artistic innovation come together in works that are both personally and socially relevant. The exhibition is therefore not a retrospective, but a contemporary reflection on the power of making and the enduring expressive force of textiles.
