Rose Red Glow: Crossing Borders with Textiles

Can textiles, like music, painting, sculpture, and architecture, serve as a universal cultural expression that transcends language,
nationality, and borders? Examining northern Finnish textile
traditions, particularly in a city of Tornio, by the border to Sweden
in Finnish Lapland, and Pechenga (Petsamo in Finnish), a
historically significant Arctic region on the coast of the Arctic
Ocean, reveal the rich entanglement of trade, migration, and
international influences.
Inspired by Nils Schillmark’s Strawberry Girl (c. 1782) and Hannu
Väisänen’s Schillmark Variations (2021), this study considers how
woven textiles, like paintings, capture layers of time and unveil
transnational textiles. By viewing woven textiles as material
entanglements rather than mere objects, items or representations,
we gain a deeper understanding of their role in shaping textile
design histories. Woven textiles actively convey and shape
knowledge, and cultural memory.