Summer Symposium 2025 > Exhibitions
COLOURFUL ELEMENTS. Textile art by Arezou Shayesteh Sadafian
The exhibition ‘colourful elements’ shows a deliberate selection of works by Arezou Shayesteh Sadafian, an artist who was born in Tehran in 1975 and has been living in Austria for several years. Her artistic practice stems from her enthusiasm for colour, her interest in abstract forms and her focus on the materiality of textiles. She explores the aesthetics of textile surfaces and investigates how their properties and textures constantly give rise to new design potential, far removed from traditional textile uses.
The artist creates colourful thread pictures whose basic concepts germinate intuitively, but which then take on a life of their own in accordance with their materiality and properties through principles that sometimes seem almost mathematical, resulting in concepts of abstraction, order and visual aesthetics. She opens up a different level of perception of the textile by using the thread as a painterly element and at the same time exploring its nature. Her analytical approach to the laws of colour and recurring rhythms and her interest in the underlying mathematical principles is probably also due to her initial studies as a physicist.
Arezou Shayesteh Sadafian is currently a Master's student at the University of Art and Design Linz and will take her Master's examination in the ‘textil.kunst.design’ course on 15 May as part of an exhibition in Haslach. Following the examination, there will be a preview of the exhibition for all interested parties as part of the International Museum Day programme.
Between mid-May and mid-July, the exhibition in Haslach will continue to grow and be supplemented with other works by the artist. From the opening of the Haslach Textile Culture Summer Symposium on 13 July 2025, the ‘colourful elements’ will then be open to all textile enthusiasts in their entirety until mid-October 2025. Arezou Shayesteh Sadafian will be available for an artist talk in the exhibition one evening per week during the three summer course weeks.
Special exhibition room of the Textile Centre Haslach
Duration: Tue, 15 July - Sun, 12 October 2025
Opening hours: Tue - Sun, 10 am - 4 pm
Weavers' market weekend: Fri, 6 - 8 pm, Sat, 9 am - 6 pm, Sun, 9 am - 5 pm
Exhibition evenings with the artist in attendance:
Mon, 14/21/28 July, 6 - 8 pm
Fri, 18 July, 4 - 7 pm
In abundance. Highlights from Gery Keszler's Life Ball collection
Every year for 26 years, Gery Keszler transformed Vienna City Hall into a place of joie de vivre, openness and solidarity. From 1993 to 2019, he initiated and organised the world-famous LIFE BALL - one of the largest charity events in Europe, a benefit for people infected with HIV and AIDS and a dazzling major event for a diverse society.
Flashy, extravagant, elegant, provocative, glamorous, nostalgic, futuristic, amusing and much more - the Life Ball themes were as varied as the numerous costumes that have accumulated in Gery Keszler's collection over the years. They tell of unforgettable performances and celebrities who have worn them. But they are also a treasure trove of unusual materials, opulent colours and sophisticated manufacturing methods. The textile view of the costumes reveals the world behind the covers and shows a wealth of complex techniques and rich textile culture - an approach that has become increasingly important for Gery Keszler since he has also been involved in weaving himself. He has now channelled his hundreds of costumes into a new project close to his heart: LIFE COSTUMES - a public costume collection with a studio, a space for creative development and social engagement in Vienna's Ottakring district (https://life-costumes.org).
As part of the Textile Culture Haslach 2025 summer symposium, treasures from this rich treasure trove will be presented for the first time in an exhibition in the Haslach church tower. On the eight floors of the massive former fortified tower, visitors can admire selected highlights from the textile heritage of the Life Ball up close, immerse themselves in a colourful world and carry the spirit of the Life Ball beyond the fortified walls to the outside world.
Haslach church tower
Opening: Sun, 13 July, 19:30
Duration: 14 July - 9 August 2025
Opening hours: Thu - Sat, 4 - 7 pm
Weavers' market weekend: Fri, 7 - 9 pm, Sat, 9 am - 6 pm, Sun, 9 am - 5 pm
Exhibition evenings:
Wed, 23/30 July, 6 - 9 p.m.
Urban fabric. Collages by Delphine Léger
During the summer symposium, works by the artist Delphine Léger will be on display in the Galerie im Gwölb on Haslach's market square. After studying textile design in Paris, the artist initially worked as an actress, musician and stage designer in France, Belgium and Morocco. She has now lived in Vienna since 2006, where she devotes herself to applied and freelance art. She paints, wallpapers, designs objects, works primarily with patterns and colours and specialises in paper objects and collages, in which she often explores the diversity of urban spaces and facades.
In the exhibition in Haslach, she will be showing both collages and textile works and will provide an insight into her working methods during an artist talk.
More information: https://www.delphineleger.at/
Galerie im Gwölb, Marktplatz 15
Opening: Tue, 15 July, 7:30 pm
Duration: 15 July - 9 August 2025
Opening hours: Fri, 2 - 4 pm, Sat, 10 am - 12 pm
Weavers' market weekend: Sat, 9am - 6pm, Sun, 9am - 5pm
Exhibition evenings:
Fri, 18 July, 4 - 7 pm
Thu, 24 July, 6 - 8 pm
Tue, 29 July, 6 - 8 pm
GABIROBA. Klang- und Fadeninstallation von Germaine Sijstermans
Dutch artist Germaine Sijstermans created Gabiroba, a spatial installation with composition, especially for Textile Centre Haslach at a location at the Marktplatz in Haslach. Everybody is welcome to visit the installation as often and long as they like during the opening hours. The rooms are there for you to wander through them, and listen, observe, think, idle, and daydream in them. On July 17th and 22nd there will be live performances of the music, performed by a quartet with i.a. the Düsseldorf-based artist Marcus Kaiser on cello and Sijstermans herself on clarinet. The music is composed as an ‘open score,’ which makes every performance unique, like a grove that shows itself differently in every new season.
Germaine Sijstermans is a composer, installation artist, and clarinetist whose work spans sitespecific
installations with music, compositions, and outdoor installations. She creates environments—sonic, physical, or both—that act as “Erscheinungsräume,” inviting musicians and audience to discover their personal sensory and phenomenological experiences, embracing the influence of environment and beauty of coincidence. Her music emphasizes timbre and texture, inviting interaction among sounds, melodies, performers, and space. Open scores invite performers to explore abstract sound materials and let them organically unfold and bloom with a non-linear approach to time. Sijstermans’s installations are transparent spaces within spaces, crafted from materials like thread, stones, paper, and oil.
This production in collaboration with the Dutch production company Intro in Situ is supported by the Dutch Fund for the Performing Arts.
More info: https://www.germainesijstermans.com/
Werkstatt Hainberger, Marktplatz 21
Duration: Tue, 15 - Thu, 31 July 2025
Opening hours: Tue - Thu, 4 - 7 pm
Live concerts:
Thu, 17 and Tue, 22 July, 7:30 pm
