KENNESAW, Ga. | Jan 14, 2025

Artist examines how technology and textiles may intersect between disciplines and knowledge

The Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University School of Art and Design will present a unique exhibition: Annet Couwenberg: Sewing Circles, opening January 28 and running through May 10, 2025. 

Annet Couwenberg: Sewing Circles presents an overview of ten years of cultural research, digital experimentation, and finished artifacts by Couwenberg, who uses lace as a primary material. Through her creations, the artist questions how traditional textile construction can be modified or transformed by adapting it to digital fabrication processes.

Couwenberg's technical experiments include 3D printing of multi-pronged connectors that are used to assemble life-size umbrella-like structures, laser-cut buckram (cloth stiffened with glue) that produces dramatic origami “infinity” collars, and Y-shaped CNC-cut polyethylene that produces infinitely scalable lace forms.

Annet Couwenberg: Sewing Circles features a wide range of projects from the past decade, which Couwenberg has completed as part of her studio practice and in partnerships with cultural institutions throughout North America and Europe. These projects highlight the expanding technological parameters related to textiles and fabrics and their specific application in the worlds of scientific research, fashion and interior design, and contemporary social issues. 

The exhibition explores Couwenberg’s depth of research as well as the multiple intersections that are revealed between established disciplines and fields of knowledge. Artist-inspired and viewed as one ‘installation’ within each gallery space, Annet Couwenberg: Sewing Circles has been organized to allow viewers to follow Couwenberg’s artistic process on multiple levels and in a non-linear format. The open-ended composition of the exhibition allows for each of her projects to expose the multiple areas of research that led to their creation.

Born in the Netherlands, Couwenberg moved to the United States to obtain MFA degrees at Syracuse University and Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has worked internationally, including in South Korea, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and The Netherlands with one-person shows at the Center for Art Design and Visual Culture in MD, Textiel Museum in the Netherlands, Baltimore Museum of Art, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, American Textile History Museum, Lowell, MA and the City Gallery, Atlanta, GA. 

Group exhibitions include shows at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC; the 11th From Lausanne to Beijing International Fiber Art Biennale Exhibition, 10th Craft Biennale; Gyeonggi MoMa and HOMA, Seoul; the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD; the Decorative Arts Museum, Little Rock, AK. She has received individual artist awards from the Maryland State and Ohio State Art Councils. 

The first monograph of her work has been published by Telos Art Publishing and the second, titled Annet Couwenberg, Sewing Circles, distributed by D.A.P. Couwenberg’s work has been reviewed by and featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Le Monde, Crafts Magazine, BmoreArt, National Academy of Science Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, Sculpture Magazine, Fiberarts, Surface Design, Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, Howl, NY. 

Her work is in the permanent collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art; Nederlands Textielmuseum, NL; Museum de Kantfabriek, NL; Gyeonggi Creation Center, Yeosu City Center and Jinnam Art and Culture Center, Korea; and numerous private collections. For more information, please visit www.annetcouwenberg.com. 

Annet Couwenberg: Sewing Circles is curated by Lori Rubeling and the traveling exhibition is organized by the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, UMBC with support from Maryland State Arts Council. 

This free exhibition at the ZMA opens Jan. 28 and runs through May 10, 2025. Learn more. 

--Kathie Beckett