WOVEN THREADS. Masterpieces of textile art. From Bali to Timor

In the heart of South-East Asia, halfway between India and China, lies an archipelago that has for centuries been criss-crossed by sea routes, migration, and economic and cultural ties, and has also been shaped by colonial history.

From Bali to Timor, right to the outermost Tanimbar Islands in the Southern Maluku, textiles occupy a central place in community life, preserving identity, memory and value systems handed down from generation to generation.

The exhibition invites the public to discover the richness of these textile traditions through around a hundred extraordinary works from the Breguet and Zuellig collections, to which the MUSEC has dedicated extensive research. More than a simple exhibition, WOVEN THREADS is a journey through stories, rituals and ancestral knowledge, where fabric becomes language, memory and a living testimony to the communities that created it.

The results of this complex research project are compiled in an English-language volume edited by Georges Breguet & Paolo Maiullari, entitled WOVEN THREADS. Textile Art from Bali to Timor. The Breguet and Zuellig Collections, which presents a wide selection of the major masterpieces from the two collections (203 works in total).