Moira Nilsson: A Sense of Place
Woven work, Malmö, Moira Nilsson 2025
“The month spent in Scotland for the Bernat Klein Fellowship filled me with energy to create and further explore textile craft, making and expressions.”
Moira Nilsson, Bernat Klein Fellow 2025
Returning to Sweden I started the move from my home and place of textile studies during the past six years. It was a big change, leaving village life behind for a new chapter in the city of Malmö. Knowing also that my surroundings greatly influence my practice, made it both exciting and uncertain in what a new place would bring.
“I returned to Sweden looking forward to finding such a fruitful working environment again. ”
It was important to find a place for my textile practice and I was quick to contact Malmö VÄV, a contemporary weave collective and studio space to become a member. The weave collective offered both an inviting studio place filled with looms as well as other textile craft equipment, tools and materials. But not least MalmöVÄV was a great community for connecting with other local textile artists, sharing knowledge, ideas and inspiration.
Moira Nilsson at Malmö VÄV. Image courtesy of Christoph von Rohden, 2025.
Making myself at home in the new studio environment I spent time preparing my loom and warp, which always reminds me of its astonishing preciseness, and endless possibilities being guided thread by thread. Sitting by the loom again I reflected on the woven textiles of Bernat Klein, which I had studied during the fellowship in Scotland.
“I was very taken by Klein’s elaborated weaves. Bright, harmonising and contrasting.”
The colours were ever-changing throughout the weaves. What I observed was how he kept his hand so present in large scale production of woven cloth. The unevenly spun yarns and his special space dye technique giving each hank of yarn several different tones and colours. Seen both close and from a far, his textiles are so successfully balanced.
Warp preparations, Malmö VÄV, 2025.
In dialogue with my own reflections on Klein’s work, I made woven textiles with thick bundles of yarn, mixed qualities of wool, linen and cotton and a variation of colour tones that slowly shifted as the weave developed. Smaller squares with thin linen threads were breaking out from the thick more textured surrounding. I saw an almost painted effect appear by the change of one or a few yarns. I could relate the yarn work to the painter with their colour pallet. That was indeed the case for Bernat Klein, being both a painter and textile designer.
“It’s not rare to see my projects mirroring the colours of the time and place where they were made. I see it like a stamp of where and when it was made. ”
Weave, Bernat Klein Fellowship, Moira Nilsson, 2025.
“In Scotland I made a woven piece that very consciously captured the colours of the landscape from my studio window. ”
The impressive and inspiring visit to the National Museums Archive in Edinburgh, with the collection of Bernat Klein’s work, made me very curious to explore research approaches, archives and history of textile. Something I’m very grateful to take with me from the fellowship. And now for this project a chance to incorporated this research approach to my art practice.
Currently I am exploring the old technique of ‘hairwork’, which I discovered in Tierps, a local heritage society and where I came across this particular craft. Prominent in Sweden, as well as Europe and America in the 19th century, ‘hairwork’ was used to create different pieces of jewellery with a high sentimental value.
Tierp Local Heritage Society, 2025.
An example of ‘Hairwork’, Tierp Local Heritage Society, 2025.
“In researching this technique, I realised that it also connected to braiding, weaving and rope making. ”
Art project by Moira Nilsson inspired by ‘hairwork’, 2025.
Art project by Moira Nilsson inspired by ‘hairwork’, 2025.
Art project by Moira Nilsson inspired by ‘hairwork’. Image courtesy of Christoph von Rohden, 2025.
“For me it becomes a contemporary interpretation of the old craft, which can be preserved as a tradition in the development of the craft of making textiles today. ”
Weave, Malmö, Moira Nilsson, 2025.
Woven work, Malmö, Moira Nilsson, 2025.
