Sincerely Making the Heart Smile
Textile as a Language of Identity, Introspection, and Cultural Memory
Opening: February 19th 6.00 p.m
Exhibition: 2026 02 20 – 03 12
The exhibition Sincerely Making the Heart Smile presents textile as a medium that transcends both functional and aesthetic frameworks, becoming a vehicle for personal and cultural expression. It focuses on how textile art can be used to explore the fluidity of identity, the relationship to the body, the role of tradition, and the significance of cultural memory. Here, textile is understood not only as a material but as a bearer of stories – a visual language that connects personal experience with collective history. The exhibition features artists from the Czech Republic and Lithuania, specifically from the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (Studio of Fashion and Textile Design) and from the Vilnius Academy of Arts (Textile Art and Design program). The exhibition is the outcome of a three-year international curatorial and pedagogical project.
The project is built on the principle of duality – connecting two schools, two generations (educators and students), and two national cultures with a shared post-totalitarian experience. Within this collaboration, two main thematic areas are explored: self-reflection (individual experience, introspective perspectives on identity) and tradition (relation to heritage, cultural patterns, and their reinterpretation). The exhibition employs various forms of visual expression – installation, object, video, and archival materials – bridging contemporary artistic thinking with historical contexts.
Curatorial inspiration draws from the symbolism of the story Alice in Wonderland, which demonstrates how reality can be viewed differently – as a space that is fluid, unstable, yet open to self-discovery. The laughter mentioned in the exhibition‘s title is not a reaction to humor, but a metaphor for inner release, openness, and the ability to reevaluate established meanings.
Laughter is an expression of inner release, but also a way in which the body responds to tension, absurdity, or uncertainty. The exhibition Sincerely Making the Heart Smile presents both an ironic and poetic perspective on identity as a mutable, culturally mediated construct. The visual language of textiles – a soft medium that surrounds us from birth to death – here serves as a tool of reflection as well as reinterpretation. A material traditionally tied to the private or utilitarian sphere becomes, in this exhibition, a bearer of narratives about the body, memory, and both personal and collective experience.
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Curator: Lenka Sýkorová
Curator’s Assistant: Nicole Langrová
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Artists: Leila Basgünová (CZ), Kamilė Bagvilaitė (LT), Deva Bartninkaitė (LT), Hana Coufalová (CZ), Ondřej Ivanov (CZ), Jan C. Löbl (CZ), Jakub Mikulášek (CZ), Jiří Peška (CZ), Luka Žiauberytė (LT), Gabija Stankevičiūtė (LT).
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Collaboration between FAD UJEP and VAA.
