Threaded Realities: From Skin to Space

Threaded Realities: From Skin to Space brings together Melbourne/Naarm-based fibre artist Kasia Dudkiewicz (Knotted by Hand) and slow fashion designer Lea Oldjohn (Corde Couture) in an immersive exploration of material, body and space.

Working across sculptural textile installation and couture garment design, both artists share a deep commitment to fibre as a structural and emotional medium. Through knotting, wrapping, draping and shaping by hand, the exhibition reveals how soft materials can carry tension, resilience and transformation.

Kasia’s large-scale fibre works are created to live within interior environments, responding to architecture, light and movement. These sculptural pieces shift throughout the day, casting shadows, absorbing atmosphere and becoming focal points within their environments. Lea’s garments echo this spatial sensibility, constructed as wearable forms that hold volume and presence, like architecture for the body.

Presented at Red Gallery, the exhibition unfolds as a tactile environment where sculpture and garment sit in quiet dialogue. Themes of labour, repair, softness and embodied process are explored not only visually but materially, inviting visitors to slow down and experience fibre beyond the decorative.

The program culminates in a public closing event featuring an artist talk and open Q&A, alongside a live catwalk presentation where models move through the installation. This transforms the exhibition into a living environment, with garments in motion interacting with sculptural forms, allowing audiences to engage with the artists and experience the work as both spatial and embodied design.

Threaded Realities proposes a design ethos grounded in tactility, presence and human connection. In an era defined by speed and digital saturation, the exhibition suggests an alternative future – one where materials shaped by hand anchor our interiors, our bodies and our shared environments in something slower, more intentional and deeply human.