ARTISTS

Paola Besana (1935-2021) was fascinated by the potentialities of advanced weaving techniques stemming from different social contexts and cultures and she produced textile artworks that explore the tridimensional nature of weaving. Her textile sculptures, reaching sometimes a large scale, put folk culture and abstract contemporary art on a continuous line. Parallel to her personal oeuvre, for three decades she led Studio di Tessitura Paola Besana, a workshop and center for research, production and teaching. In this frame, together with associates Paola Bonfante and Lalla Ranza, she designed textiles for architects, the theater, fashion and the industry. She developed a personal teaching methodology based more on the logic of techniques than on the patterns through which such techniques are commonly expressed. Alongside to her teaching and research activities, she curated a large collection of textile-related objects, such as woven items, samples of weaves, traditional objects and a textile library, which are now made available through the Paola Besana Archives.