BIEN 2026–2027: Tunnels

Please note: Open Call for the Textile Art Biennial BIEN 2027 – launching June 2026

BIEN invites textile and interdisciplinary artists to apply for the special project Tunnels. This project offers an opportunity to engage in a collaborative research and artistic process with the team of the Tržič Museum, selected Slovenian artists, and textile professionals across the field. Together, participants will explore difficult heritage and critical historical contexts, using textile art as a site for dialogue, reflection, and embodied practice.

The Tržič Museum manages the memorial park and museum dedicated to the prisoners of the Ljubelj/Loibl concentration camp, a satellite camp of Mauthausen. Prisoners were forced to dig a tunnel through the mountain between present-day Slovenia and Austria - an infrastructure project of strategic importance, connecting the German Reich with the Balkans.

Within this context, visual representation becomes a crucial entry point - particularly the role of textile in systems of control. Uniforms, markings, and enforced material conditions functioned as tools of dehumanisation, stripping individuals of identity while simultaneously inscribing power onto the body.

This open call is intended for individual artists or small groups who are prepared to engage with complex and sensitive subject matter. We are looking for practices that demonstrate the ability to navigate dark history and a genuine interest in themes such as war, displacement, labour, grief, and collective storytelling.

The project engages with questions of power and movement, the layered meanings of infrastructure, and broader socio-economic and historical contexts. It approaches the tunnel not only as a site of violence, but also as a charged metaphor of connection, division, parallel construction, and misaligned intentions. The idea of building from two sides toward a shared point becomes a starting place for reflection, dialogue, and the possibility of rethinking inherited narratives.

This is a demanding and emotionally complex context, but also a deeply meaningful and layered one. Motivation, sensitivity, and responsibility are essential.

Through collaboration between international and Slovenian artists, the project seeks to open space for new perspectives - where dialogue becomes a method, and textile a medium through which fragile, difficult histories can be approached, held, and transformed.

APPLICATION FORM: click here 

Submission deadline: April 30, 2026

Team

Lovro Ivančić, Vita Ivičić, Zala Orel (BIEN)

Anja Bajda (Tržič Museum)

Lea Vene, Tonči Vladislavić (CIMO)

Lili Panjtar, Nina Vastl Štefe, Ladka Peneš, Silva Horvat, Anja Musek, Kati Sekirnik (Kreativnice) 

Claire Wellesley Smith 

Project outputs

- Stitched Reflection Map and Art Piece

Developed following a facilitation workshop with mentor Claire Wellesley Smith

(June 2, 2026, Ljubelj/Loibl site)

- Small Exhibition Piece

Developed following a facilitation workshop with curators Lovro Ivančić and Lea Vene

(October 20, 2026, Kranj/Tržič)

- Final Collaborative Exhibition Piece

Presented as part of BIEN 2027

(May 28 – June 2, 2027 BIEN 2027 Opening Week)

Important dates

Submission deadline: April 30, 2026

Online info session: April 24, 2026, 10:00-11:00 CET, session link: here 

First research and reflection visit: June 1–4, 2026

Second research and reflection visit: October 19–22, 2026

Third research and reflection visit: February 22–25, 2027

Deadline for final piece shipping: May 1, 2027

Opening week: May 27 – June 3, 2027

Who can apply

Individual artists or artist collectives (maximum 3 members)

Applicants whose practice resonates with the themes of the call

Eligible applicants must be 18+ and based across the European continent (Slovenia excluded)

Expenses covered 

Artist fee: 1200 EUR per person

Materials: 500 EUR per person

Travel costs: up to 300 EUR per visit per group (4* visits)

Accommodation and per diem organized and covered by BIEN

All amounts are stated in gross.

APPLICATION FORM: click here