In the first floor exhibition space of the Dubniczay Palace, visitors will be able to see a special and unique exhibition that presents one of the oldest textile-making techniques, sprang, from both a historical and a contemporary perspective.
The history of sprang is rich in human history. It appears again and again in different eras and continents. The earliest find in Europe, near Borum in Denmark, dates from the Early Bronze Age (around 1400 BC) and was discovered in 1871. By this time the technique had become almost unknown, although it had been used for centuries to make various items of clothing, belts and headdresses.
Sprang is a simple basic braiding technique, known since Neolithic times, which creates a flexible textile with a symmetry in the structure and pattern of the fabric; the variations that can be created are almost infinite. With its easy spatial shapes, it is also suitable for creative art.
In the exhibition, works by Hungarian and international (Czech, Danish, Croatian, Japanese, Canadian, Norwegian) contemporary artists show that with the necessary openness and imagination, autonomous and utilitarian objects can be created with this unusual technique, using a wide variety of materials. This is complemented by textile artefacts made with the sprang technique, on loan from the Ethnographic Museum and the Museum of Applied Arts, which give a taste of the extremely rich patterning that characterises these traditional wickerwork garments.
At the exhibition, visitors will be able to try out the technique in a communal spinning session, creating a shared sprang at the end of the exhibition, symbolising the interconnectedness of the two.