ReThread 2025

You can browse the handbook here.

About:

ReThread is intended for professionals in art therapy, educators, artists, community leaders, textile practitioners, and all those who wish to integrate textile practices and nature-based practices into their work with people and communities. The handbook combines theoretical insights, research findings, and practical workshop descriptions, making it a useful tool for designing programmes at the intersection of art, nature, and wellbeing.

In the introductory chapters, author Jasmina Ferček outlines the fundamental reasons for the programme's inception: the need for spaces where professionals from care professions and education can reconnect with themselves,  their bodies, and their creativity. Textile is presented as a »soft surface of memory,« while nature serves as a co-regulator enabling calming, reflection, and renewal. The core section of the handbook features detailed presentations of mentors from diverse fields—art therapy, forest therapy, engaged textile art, and craft practices.

One key contribution is the research section, based on qualitative analysis of sixteen online evaluations from participants. It reveals how combining textile and nature supports wellbeing, embodied presence, self-regulation, creative freedom, belonging, and identity processes. Five dynamic process factors have been identified, each involving mechanisms that shape specific outcomes:

1 Nature as a space of calming, presence, and self-contemplation

2 Nature as a relieving factor in the creative process

3 Textile as a carrier of memory, intimacy, and embodiment

4 Living dialogue between nature and textile

5 Community as a space of safety, mirroring support, and ecological/creative interconnectedness

About creators

Jasmina Ferček, author

Jasmina Ferček is the curator of the ReThread programme and a professional collaborator of the BIEN Textile Art Biennial. She is the author of this handbook and research, as well as co-author of the handbook and research Textile Communities: Social impacts and psychological benefits of creating with textiles (2024). As a textile artist and MA in arts therapy, she explores the significance of women's creative experiences with textiles through conversations with them. In the Oloop collective, she has worked for 21 years in the field of participatory and psycho-socially engaged textile art. She investigated the impact of textile creation on women's wellbeing and health in her master's thesis and then wrote a book on the topic in 2022 titled The Power of Textile. She is a member of the Slovenian Arts Therapists Association (SZUT), the Croatian Art Therapy Association (HART), and the European Federation of Art Therapy (EFAT).

Zala Orel, editor

Zala Orel is the founder and artistic director of the BIEN Textile Art Biennial. Educated as a communication scholar, she researches the needs of artists, the desires of audiences, and the challenges of cultural workers, addressing them through various methods that primarily involve connecting people, institutions, ideas, and resources. She has been employed at the Carnica Institute since 2013 in the fields of artistic project management and organization development. Orel is a doctoral student in Social Geography and Regional Development at Charles University in Prague.