We are delighted to present an engaging interview with Ismini Samanidou, a Greek-born artist, designer, educator, and keynote speaker at the 16th International Creativity and Culture 2025 conference, whose innovative textile practice merges traditional weaving with contemporary media such as film and installation. In this conversation, Ismini reflects on how interdisciplinary collaborations with architects and filmmakers expand her creative horizons, the importance of preserving handmade techniques while embracing innovation, and questions the potential of textiles to connect, communicate, and transform the way we live and relate to the material world.
How does your experience collaborating with artists from different fields, such as architects and filmmakers, enrich and influence your textile practice?
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Collaborating with artists from different fields allows my practice and working methods to extend and reach unknown territories. Collaborating with architects has allowed me to develop woven works that can influence the atmosphere of a building and work at a bigger scale and have a permanent application. When working with film I have been able to consider the story telling aspect of my working processes and communicate this with a wider audience beyond geographical location. When called to collaborate I find myself outside my comfort zone and as uncomfortable as this can be at times I know it is also a necessary process in order to allow myself to take chances and explore new ways of making and thinking. I especially become fascinated when I realise how close our thought processes can be throughout a project, but working in our unique skill sets with often very different media, how the work can have affinities and even though in different formats can ‘speak’ to each other. I love learning about how people make and think, and love to be introduced to new techniques and materials and collaboration does exactly that. It creates a new space for thought and material and can open new ways of connection.
What is your perspective on preserving traditional handmade techniques in contemporary art, and how do you integrate these with innovation?
I am passionate about what can be made by hand. Of course there is a plethora of hand made techniques, very many of them traditional, relating to a long line of makers that they themselves relate to a material and a place. I am deeply touched by the fact that once everything was made by hand, and that processes, techniques, materials developed hand in hand over time and space, by generations of the people who used them. We are part of a lineage of makers and in my work and teaching I often speak about the importance of looking back to look forward. There are fantastic new tools and techniques to experiment with and combine ways of making that can in themselves develop entirely new materials and surfaces. In my work I strive to celebrate the skill and time involved in making, and to make this process visible and a point of discussion. In a time where things just appear and just as easily disappear I feel it is my responsibility as a designer artist maker to raise questions about value, time, sustainability and origin and the difficulties we are faced with when trying to find the balance.
Could you please share the main message you hope to communicate to the Conference audience?
My main message is as much an idea as is a question: (Can) Textiles path a way to a different way of connecting, making, communicating and living? (Can) Traditional techniques and where these come from show us best practices and understanding of the material world and our place within it. .png)
