The exhibition THREADS OF MEMORY explores how identity is negotiated under conditions of migration, political repression, and personal loss, and how textile practices function as carriers of memory, resistance, and cultural continuity. Drawing on my Belarusian migration background, my work reflects on ruptures, ambivalences, and violent political attributions connected to my origins.

The exhibition brings drawings, photographs, and textile works into a poetic dialogue. Textile becomes an archive—a material that stores experience and transmits meaning across time.

My artistic work addresses identity, politics, and memory, and makes a return to Belarus impossible. Through textile works and photography, I process experiences of loss, control, and homesickness. Textile functions as a carrier of cultural identity, memory, and protest. Embroidery, deeply rooted in Belarusian culture and nature, allows me to connect personal experiences with collective memory, linking past and present.

Katharina Büttgen