The Housed Body
Filwa Nazer’s practice focuses on textiles, using sewing techniques, hand stitching and in particular pattern making, to explore tensions between bodies and the spaces they occupy. She is also known for her collage works overlaying personal snapshots with tangles of patterned shapes, which visually and conceptually convey stories related to female biographies.
As part of the Biennale Encounters program that invites artists to share their working methodologies, Nazer will conduct a workshop introducing participants to pattern-making techniques as spatial tools and exploring the theme of “home.” The workshop is dedicated to participants from the field of art, design, and fashion interested in experimental and interdisciplinary approaches.
Biennale Encounters will provide the materials, but participants are welcomed to bring a personal item of clothing or plain fabric, sewing kits, or anything that might be useful for the workshop.
Please write up a short statement of interest (100-150 words), briefly describing your background and interest in this workshop in Arabic or English.
Please send your statement of interest to
Presented By
Filwa Nazer
Filwa Nazer is a Saudi artist whose abstract textile works, collages, and drawings merge techniques and materials from the fields of the visual arts, fashion, and architecture. Her explorations of women’s lives in the context of Saudi Arabia give visual and spatial form to emotions, personal stories, and collective memories. After graduating from the Marangoni School of Fashion and Design, Milan, Nazer attended classes offered by the pioneering Saudi painter Safeya Binzagr, who turned her home in Jeddah into an art gallery, library, and school for other women artists in the early 1990s. Nazer has recently shown her work in a number of major international exhibitions, such as the Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. (2023), the 16th Lyon Biennale (2022), and the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (2019).