The “Woven Secrets / Secrete Intrețesute” exhibition opened recently at the FABER Cultural Center. It explores the textile industry in Timișoara and Romania. Through unique collaborations between Romanian designers, researchers, engineers, manufacturers, local textile factories, and students, the exhibition highlights the power of design to change conventional working models in the industry and presents bold and visionary approaches to collaboration and production.
The works in the exhibition approach key topics for developing the textile industry, such as textile waste, upcycling and gaps in supply chains.
The “Woven Secrets” exhibition, curated by Martina Muzi, is part of FABER’s Design Signals program. This program aims to investigate the design ecosystem in Timișoara and follow the fragmentation and transformations of the city’s industry branches.
Anchored in the sociologist Norbert Petrovici’s report, “Changes in global textile markets: Romania’s role in the global value chain between 1962 and 2022”, the exhibition reflects the current state of the textile industry in Romania, but also in the city, from an economic and socio-cultural perspective, considering historical factors and relationship with the global market. From a historical point of view, the large state factories such as Uzinele Textile Timișoara (UTT), 1 Iunie, Industria Lânii (ILSA), Bumbacul were essential for the economy and life of the Timișoara community, shaping entire neighborhoods and livelihoods. However, with increased competition at the EU level, mass production has declined. Although the industry is less visible today, it is far from extinct.
According to the research, from the 1990s to the mid-2000s, textile exports had the largest share in Romania’s export basket, representing 25% of total exports. By 1998, the importance of the textile sector had increased significantly to 36%, becoming the largest export category by the mid-2000s. However, in the period following the global crisis of 2008, the share of the textile sector declined considerably to 6.9 % by 2021.
Even though the percentage of textile exports dropped significantly after the 2008 crisis, Romania’s textile exports remained relatively stable. This trend does not suggest a weakening of Romania’s position in the global textile sector but rather an overall increase in the globalization of the textile supply chain, with a higher market value traded globally, increased competition, and changes in global supply chains.
In addition, the textile industry in Romania has adapted, and smaller and more flexible production systems have emerged, which are deeply interconnected with sectors such as automotive, chemical, and agricultural. In the automotive industry, Romania exports essential intermediate goods, such as car seats (19.68%) and synthetic fibres, crucial components in production processes in countries such as Germany and France.
However, Romania still exports a variety of final consumer goods with a high degree of complexity, such as women’s suits and trousers (5.03%), men’s suits and trousers (4.03%), footwear leather (6.00%) and women’s coats (3.86%).
Curator Martina Muzi, designer and design teacher at Design Academy Eindhoven, about the curatorial concept and the designers present in “Woven Secrets” exhibition: “The textile industry is part of the city’s industrial heritage and is recognized as the material most often in contact with our skin, which is why we are interested in observing it as a whole, as a result of complex weaving techniques, resource transformations, machine intelligence, engineering processes, human knowledge, collective memory and environmental challenges. The designers selected for the “Interwoven Secrets” exhibition are curious and open to experimenting at the intersection of design, industry and research. Their multidisciplinary projects showcase a variety of design approaches, tools, techniques, media and materials.”
Oana Simionescu, architect, FABER executive director, about industrial heritage and the importance of collaboration: “The Design Signals program managed to bring together young designers and Romanian professionals, researchers, textile factories, students, engineers, manufacturers, and former factory workers. This year, we opened the doors of textile factories in Timișoara to reveal the processes inside and create unique collaborations between them and designers. We also continued the collaboration with the Politehnica University of Timișoara; together, we created connections between designers and engineers for innovative design works. It was very important for us to understand what this industry meant to people, so we invited former workers to tell us about work and life in textile factories. We want this kind of collaboration to be a benchmark for the importance of creative industries in the city’s economic and administrative sector.”
The “Woven Secrets” exhibition can be visited between October 3 and November 24, at FABER – Azur halls, from Tuesday to Friday, between 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., and on weekends, between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. On the 4th and 5th of October, the exhibition is part of the White Night of the Galleries program and has extended visiting hours until 10:00 p.m. The exhibition benefits from a mediation program through guided tours and special programs for children.
Design Signals program continues the approach started last year with the Politehnica University of Timișoara – Bright Cityscapes. Part of the National Program Timișoara 2023: European Capital of Culture, the program offered an initiation into the evolution of the industrial sector in Timișoara through contemporary design practices and brought together thinkers, designers, sociologists, creative networks, academia, international institutions and companies, in a series of exhibitions, conferences and workshops. Design Signals will continue investigating the chemical and agri-food industries in the coming years.
