Tabby Trio: Ida Hagen, Elena Meneghini & Estelle Bourdet

The Tabby Trio; Estelle Bourdet (SE/CH), Elena Meneghini (IT) and Ida Hagen (NO) had an exhibition in SKOG June 2024.

Just as a musical trio brings together different instruments to create harmony, hand weavers Estelle Bourdet, Elena Meneghini, and Ida Hagen play with their materials and textiles, making new melodies—a drawn parallel between the rhythmic interplay of music and the interlacing of threads on a loom.

The showcased pieces in "Tabby Trio" are all made in tabby weave—the simplest and most foundational form of weaving. Bourdet, Meneghini and Hagen each bring their individual approach to this ancient craft, experimenting with various materials, techniques, colors and subjects. The textiles are unified by their composition from sustainable and upcycled materials such as paper, worn climbing ropes, and cotton sheets, echoing the tradition of rag weaving—a craft on Norges Husflidslag’s “red list” of endangered crafts. Traditionally, rag weaving meant recycling worn textiles into new purposes. Today, working with this technique becomes a conscious and political choice they make in order to use part of the immense amount of textile materials already available.

Bourdet, Meneghini, and Hagen work on traditional floor looms, weaving personal and conscious narratives.

"Tabby Trio" explores the intersection of tradition and the contemporary. The exhibition tells stories of renewal, sustainability and playful craftsmanship, suggesting us to reconsider our notions of durability, beauty, and utility.

About the artists:

Estelle Bourdet

Estelle Bourdet is a Norway-based Swiss-Swedish hand weaver working with authentic materials to create textile objects and site-specific installations. A graduate of ECAL University of Art and Design Lausanne in Fine Arts, and with specialized studies in weaving at Capellagården, Sweden, she blends traditional craft with contemporary aesthetics. Prioritizes conscious creativity by utilizing slow production processes and upcycled materials, each of her piece enhances spaces and embodies craftsmanship and sustainability. Her work has been exhibited in Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Italy, Germany as well as Johannesburg, Montreal and New York. Read more about her.

Elena Meneghini

Elena Meneghini is a hand weaver based in Milan, Italy. She lived in Sweden for two years to specialice in weaving at Capellagården. Through her practice as a weaver, she seeks to explore experiences related to material culture, valuing quality, care and time as essential elements. Her artistic research feeds on local stories, people and traditions, focusing on places of exchange between different cultures. Weaving becomes her medium of expression, allowing her to curate and select elements for her work.

Her research on paper yarn is particularly fascinated by the rhythm and textile structure that this humble material brings. A material usually associated with the concept of two-dimensionality, once filtered through the loom, comes to life, acquiring new volumes and meanings.

Her work has been exhibited in Italy, South Korea and Sweden. More about Elena.

Ida Hagen

Oslo-based hand weaver, artist, and designer Ida Hagen has been fascinated by textiles her whole life, and she completed her textile education at Capellagården in Sweden in 2022. Her work is the result of exploration and experiments with colors, materials, techniques, and textures. In her practice she juggles between art and utility items, mastering everything from weaving and knitting to spinning, felting, and dyeing. As a colorist, she is concerned with the power and impact of color on us all, something she consciously works with in everything she does. Her work has been exhibited in Norway, Sweden, Italy and South Korea. More about Ida.