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A human being inhales more than 256 million liters of air during their lifetime (Peter Adey, Air: Nature and Culture, 2014). With each breath, we take in a fragment of the collective, a trace of the past, a measure of truth. Air, as a shared resource, connects all living beings. It is a fundamental element that transcends borders, nations, and social classes, reminding us of our common existence. Already in Roman law, it was written that air is res communis—a public good. It is “the most present element we most rarely notice” (Steven Connor, The Matter of Air, 2010). It is not only the physical space in which we exist, but also the medium through which we think, feel, see, and communicate. In this sense, air cannot be separated from culture, space, the body, or history. It is a medium of movement, rhythm, life. Air is the space in between—between the body and the cloth, between us and the other, between the past and the present.
Air is the first textile. It wraps us at the moment of birth. It fills our lungs, carries our voices, swells our breath. And yet, we do not see it. It is weightless, invisible, but full of substance. Accordingly, textiles are not merely a medium of labor, but an instrument of sensation, an archive of time, and a sensitive ecosystem.
In the world of textiles, air is omnipresent—caught between fibers, filtered through weave, animated by breath and breeze. Textiles give it shape and volume. They structure space by taming air, and archive time by retaining scents, particles, and memories. Textiles absorb the world. They respond to light, breath, sweat, and wind. They preserve the scent of the person who wore them, the dust of the space where they hung, the warmth of the body, or traces of labor. In this way, textiles become air filters—porous, receptive, alive. Every woven or knitted structure is, at its core, a balance between presence (the thread) and absence (the gaps between threads). Claire Wellesley-Smith links textiles to the practices of slowness, contemplation, and attention as a form of resistance to the acceleration of contemporary life (Slow Stitch, 2015).
Textile processes are often meditative and rhythmic, reflecting the act of breathing and the passage of time. In a world increasingly moving between digital and material realities, textiles remain a tactile and emotional experience. Their fibers tell stories of origin and process. The thread moves over and under, like the inhalation and exhalation of life. Throughout history, many cultures have considered this rhythm sacred. Breathing was given spiritual significance: prana in Hinduism, qi in Taoism, pneuma in Christianity, neshamah in Judaism—breath as a bridge between body and the divine, between the material and the invisible. Breathing is not merely a biological necessity; it is an ethical and spiritual act, an act of connection. Many African and Indigenous cultures associate breath with spirituality and life force. In some traditions, breath is seen as a link between ancestors and descendants, connecting the living with the spiritual realm.
Inhalation is often perceived as an act of receiving, of taking the world into oneself, of drawing in energy or accepting what is necessary for survival. It is seen as a phase of growth and renewal, allowing new experiences, ideas, or nourishment to enter the body and soul. Exhalation represents release, the letting go of what no longer serves us, and the creation of space for new growth. It symbolizes surrender, the flow of time, and the natural cycle of life and death.
The basic act of inhaling—once sacred, instinctive—has become monitored, uneven, and political. What was once taken for granted is now unequal, packaged, sanitized, filtered, priced, toxic, and monitored. In some places, air kills with violence—bombs, gas, smoke. Elsewhere, it arrives through HEPA filters, pre-packaged and sterilized. The same filters that, in our rush for more, we forget to unwrap for years, rendering them useless. People now live in sealed buildings without windows, relying on machines to simulate nature. The absurdity is complete: we no longer breathe together. We breathe within our tax bracket.
The historical relationship between air and textiles is especially evident in the context of industrial production. In Air: Nature and Culture (2014), Peter Adey emphasizes that air is never politically neutral. It is shaped by infrastructure, class relations, and production processes. Industrial towns like Kranj, Jesenice, and Idrija were shaped by a history of polluted air - textile fibers, metal dust, and chemical vapors. Air was the bearer of labor, but also of silent consequences—unseen, yet indelible. The textile industry has left a legacy not only in material terms, but in atmosphere, in the spirit of cities.
Today, we know that the textile industry remains one of the world’s major contributors to air pollution, not only through fibers and dust but also through volatile chemicals released in dyeing, bleaching, and synthetic production. Meanwhile, conflict zones like Gaza or Ukraine demonstrate how war weaponizes air: through burning, gas, and unlivable atmospheres. Philosopher Peter Sloterdijk calls this “atmoterrorism”—the strategic manipulation of air to cause harm. “I can’t breathe!” is no longer just a plea; it is an indictment, a global condition.
Textile now becomes an act of resistance. Fabric takes the shape of a flag for those without a voice, a veil that hides and reveals, a cloth that remembers the scent of loss, an apron that testifies to labor, a scarf that carries a final breath. Breathing together becomes a political act. Not a luxury, not a metaphor—but a form of resistance.
At this year’s Textile Art Biennial, we follow the movements of air as both medium and metaphor, as element and archive, as a site of spiritual, political, industrial, and sensory transformation. Air is a witness to the histories of labor, industry, dust, and human stories. We ask: What is the cost of the air we breathe? Who owns and controls it? Who has access to clean air? And how can textiles help us materialize what remains unseen—toxic clouds, ancestral breath, dreams, grief?
In this picture, textiles and air share a crucial trait: their form is always in negotiation with what surrounds them. Air is invisible, yet it shapes. Textile is visible, yet it conceals more than it reveals. This exhibition does not aim to make air material, but to show that it already is—through folds, deformations, scents, and what Steven Connor calls “the material metaphysics of the ether”—air that, though invisible, becomes sensually present and effective.
In a broader social context, particularly in an era of climate disruption, urban ecological crises, and the digital dematerialization of daily life, the invitation to listen to air through textile processes becomes more than an aesthetic gesture. It becomes an act of directed attention, a micropolitical resistance to ecological amnesia, and a meditation on the invisible forces shaping our bodies, cities, and the air we share. In this context, air is not a passive participant, but a conversational partner in the process.
We breathe together - or not at all.
