Talk

Wednesday, 14 October 2026, 6:30 pm

Talk and Artist Conversation: Fabric and Time

The Textile Industry in Historiography and Art
The event is part of the programme accompanying the exhibition Labouring Bodies, in cooperation with Fondation Fernet-Branca
Free admission, no booking required, in English


Talk by Dr. Antonia von Schöning, Historian of Culture and Technology, Universität Basel, followed by a roundtable conversation with the artist Aurora Király and Olga Osadtschy, Director Fondation Fernet-Branca. Moderation: Dr. Sandra Beate Reimann.

 

«Fabric and Time» looks at how proto-industrial weaving in Europe became a key object of study for computer-assisted social history in the 1970s. Female labour played a central role both in historical textile manufacturing and in twentieth-century humanities computing, especially in data processing and the analysis of historical patterns. The talk connects textile structures, data processing, and historiography, with particular attention to the iconography of women depicted before machines and ornamental patterns.

 

 

Image credits: © Julian Salinas; © Vlad Dragne; © Christian Werner


Labouring Bodies
10 June - 8 November 2026

Labouring Bodies

«Labouring Bodies» explores the manifold interdependence between body and technology from a feminist perspective. The group exhibition shows how the human body—especially the feminized and marginalized human body—has since the dawn of the modern age been shaped and controlled by machines, while also being understood as a site of resistance. Artists cast light on working with machines, on the technologization of production and reproduction, and on women’s contribution to technological progress, inviting visitors to rethink their notions of body, labour and care.


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