Interwoven: Creating Community by Supporting Artistic Innovation in Textile Arts and Fashion

Michelle Baggerman, Educator-Curator at TextielMuseum | TextielLab, Tilburg, the Netherlands

Michelle Baggerman is Educator-Curator at TextielMuseum | TextielLab, where she develops educational programs and exhibitions. With a background in design research, she connects textiles, sustainability, and technology and guides young professionals in the international Advanced Textile Program. Her work focuses on making textile knowledge accessible and unlocking the potential of industrial heritage through projects positioned at the intersection of artistry and innovation.

Moderator: Jill D’Alessandro, Director and Curator, Avenir Institute of Textile Arts & Fashion, Denver Art Museum

Jill D'Alessandro is the Director and Curator of the Avenir Foundation of Textile Arts and Fashion. Prior, she served as the Curator in Charge of Costume and Textile Arts at The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2002-2022). As a curator overseeing global collections of both textile and costume art, D’Alessandro is interested in the transglobal fashion narratives and the study of textiles as a vehicle to draw connections across cultures.

Kaat Debo, Director of MoMu, Fashion Museum Antwerp, Belgium

Kaat Debo is Director and Chief Curator of MoMu, Fashion Museum Antwerp. She studied literature at universities in Antwerp and Berlin and joined MoMu in 2001 as a curator. Since joining MoMu, she has worked with some of the world's leading fashion designers and fashion houses. During her twenty-five years at the museum, she curated more than fifty exhibitions. She helped expand the museum’s international reputation by traveling its exhibitions. She regularly lectures on contemporary Belgian fashion.

Steven Frost, Artist and Assistant Professor of Media Studies at University of Colorado Boulder, and Associate Director of the Unstable Design Lab

Steven Frost (they/them) is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and Associate Director of the Unstable Design Lab at CU’s ATLAS Institute. An interdisciplinary fiber artist, they approach weaving as social infrastructure, using textiles to explore queer worldmaking, memory, and community building. Frost cofounded the Experimental Weaving Residency and cohosts the Experimental Weaving Talk Series, fostering dialogue across art, craft, and research communities through collaborative workshops and public-facing projects.

Raja Ghanta, Vice President of Special Projects, Chanakya International

Raja Ghanta serves as the Vice President of Special Projects at Chanakya International, a leader in artisanal craft and supporter of several hundred gestures of hand craft across ateliers in India and Italy. Throughout its forty-year history, Chanakya has inspired and partnered with leading couturiers, interior designers, and luxury houses such as Gucci, Fendi, and Prada. With a two-fold mission to innovate and educate, the school explores material innovations via collaborations with leading artists as well as through its own artistic practice, with work featured at leading cultural institutions, including the Venice Biennale. Since the school’s founding in 2017, more than one thousand women have been educated, fostering both communities and forums for self-expression.

Gyöngy Laky, Sculptor, Founder of Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts

Gyöngy Laky, a San Francisco–based sculptor, was born in Budapest, Hungary, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1949. She received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1973, Laky founded a community arts establishment in Berkeley, California: Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts. With a gallery, lecture programs, symposia, community programs, and classes, it grew rapidly and eventually developed an international reputation. From 1978 to 2005, she served as a professor and later chair in the department of art and design at the University of California, Davis. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Laky’s artwork is exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in thirty-two public and museum collections.

Jordana Munk Martin, Founder and Executive Director, Tatter

Jordana Munk Martin is the founder of TATTER, a cultural arts organization in Brooklyn, New York, that explores the medium of textiles as a way to cultivate human connection and understanding. TATTER is home to a public textile research library and serves over five thousand students across the globe through their classes. Martin is also founder and Editor-in-Chief of Tatter Journal, a digital journal surveying textiles within contemporary practice in fine arts, design, and culture.