JURY
INTERNATIONAL
EXHIBITION
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Contextile 2026
Cláudia Melo
Independent curator, consultant and artistic director. Higher Education Teacher (ESE-IPP, UTC ARTES VISUAIS). Visual artist.
Artistic Director of Contextile – Contemporary Textile Art Biennial.
Curator at the European project Magic Carpets -European Platforms- Creative Europe.
Member of the Management Board Committee of Magic Carpets -European Platforms- Creative Europe. Graduated in Fine Arts – Painting by the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. She attended the curricular components of the Master’s Degree in Contemporary Artistic Creation, University of Aveiro and the PhD in Contemporary Art, College of Arts, University of Coimbra. She was a researcher at Citar (Arts Theory Research Centre, School of Arts, Catholic University).
Words defining Textile Art today:
– origin / future
– transversality
– specificity and expansion
Lala de Dios
Art historian by education and a vocational weaver.
She teaches and lectures on textile art, design and crafts both at her country and abroad (Facultad de Bellas Artes de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, 2023; Andalusian Centre for Contemporary Art, Seville, 2022; National Museum of Decorative Arts, Madrid, 2021; China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and University of Guangzhou, 2019; Tama Art University in Tokio and Yamagata School of Art&Design, Japan, 2018; Textile Talks Contextile 2020 and 2018, Guimarães, Portugal…).
She has curated a number of national and international exhibitions and events (Fine Tuning, 2022; Peninsulares 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2013, Spain and Portugal; Pushing the Limits, online, 2020 ongoing; Loose Ends, Guimarães, 2014…). Member of the jury of several editions of Contextile, Art al Vent and the WTA Biennial editions in Costa Rica and Colombia.
She has worked in cooperation for development projects in Africa and South America, an experience which has greatly enriched her understanding of textile practices in widely different local contexts. Co-founder and current chairwoman of Asociación para la Creación Textil (former Asociación de Creadores Textiles de Madrid). President of the Spanish National Arts&Crafts Organisation. Former president of the European Textile Network ETN from 1997 to 2019 where she now sits at the Advisory Council. Member -among others- of Madrid Designers Association DIMAD and Women in Visual Arts MAV.
Lewis Biggs
Lewis Biggs was Director of Tate Liverpool (1990-2000).
He co-founded Liverpool Biennial in 1998 and was its Artistic Director 2000-2011.
As an independent curator or co-curator he realised Artranspennine 1998; Aichi Triennale 2013; Folkestone Triennial 2014, 2017, 2021; Land Art Mongolia 2018.
He is Chairman of the Institute for Public Art www.instituteforpublicart.org ; a Trustee of John Moores Painting Prize Trust https://jmppt.org/ and of International Awards for Art Criticism http://www.iaac-m21.com/english/. He was a consultant to Kaunas European Capital of Culture 2022 and remains an adviser to Kaunas Biennial. He is Distinguished Professor of Public Art at Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, University of Shanghai.
Magali Junet
Director and curator of the Fondation Toms Pauli in Lausanne (Switzerland), Magali Junet is dedicated to preserving and promoting a unique textile heritage comprising two collections: the first brings together tapestries and embroideries from the 16th to the 19th centuries; the second, made up of works from the second half of the 20th century, illustrates the evolution of the medium during the Lausanne International Tapestry Biennials (1962–1995).
Among her main publications, Magali Junet co-authored From Tapestry to Fiber Art: The Lausanne Biennials 1962–1995 with Giselle Eberhard Cotton. She is also the author of several essays and lectures, some devoted to Magdalena Abakanowicz, and co-curated the exhibition Magdalena Abakanowicz.Textile Territories, organized in 2023 at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, in collaboration with Tate and Henie Onstad Art Center.
Through her work, Magali Junet contributes to redefining the place of tapestry and textile art within art history, highlighting their essential role in both artistic research and creative practice.
In partnership with the mudac – Cantonal Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts – and its director Marco Costantini, Magali Junet recently presented in Lausanne an exhibition titled Times in Tapestry. Goshka Macuga x Grayson Perry x Mary Toms, dedicated to the theme of tapestry as a primary medium of storytelling and propaganda across time.
Magda Soboń
Visual artist specialising in paper and textile art and university professor at the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Art in Łódź in Poland.
In her work, she explores the various possibilities of paper matter and natural fibres as forms of artistic expression. Using texture and structure, she searches for an universal language of expression and creates large-format objects that retain the characteristic features for textile.
She is an author of several solo exhibitions and she participated in numerous group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. She is a winner of some prestigious awards as: The Prize of the organisation’s Board Members of the ‘Biennale Internationale du Lin de Portneuf’ (BILP) in Canada in 2020; The Prize granted by the Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship at 11th Baltic Mini Textile in Gdynia, Poland in 2019; Honourable mention at 1st Biennale of Textile Art in Poznań, Poland in 2017; Honourable mention at Contextile 2016 – Contemporary Textile Art Biennial in Portugal in 2016, Grand Prix at 14th International Triennial of Tapestry in Łódź, Poland in 2013; Excellent mention at 7th International Fibre Art Biennale ‘From Lausanne To Beijing’ in China in 2012; Honourable mention at 6th International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art in Mexico in 2011; Bronze Medal at 6th International Fibre Art Biennale – From Lausanne To Beijing in China in 2010.
Susana Pires
Visual artist, teacher and researcher.
Guest lecturer of the Tapestry course at FBAUL – Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon and Director of the Illustration and Design Degree at IPLUSO – Polytechnic Institute of Lusophony, Lisbon.
In a body of work presented through drawing, sculpture and installation, she assumes textiles as discursive materiality. Took part in the Young Creators 2003 selections, the Anteciparte 2005 awards, the Young Artists Alentejo 2006 award (an initiative of Alentejo Regional Directorate for Culture) and Contextile 2016. Highlights the exhibitions “WAH! (We are Here)” at the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation Centre for Art and Culture, Évora and “Fazer Sentido” at Casa da Cerca – Almada Contemporary Art Centre.
Doctorate in Painting by FBAUL, she is an integrated researcher at CIEBA-FBAUL and a collaborator at the Luso Innovation Centre – IPLUSO. She develops her research in two parallel lines: the practice of drawing and textile processes.
Curated the exhibition “O Ponto e o Pixel”, part of the CTTs collection in the permanent exhibition of the Tapestry Museum of Portalegre – Guy Fino in 2017 and co-organised the encounter “Ponto – Textile Art in Perspective”, Arraiolos in 2021. She collaborated with grAVA – Poetic Research Group in Visual Arts (Brazil). Since 2024, she organises the Illustration Seminar “Desenhos Falados” and in 2025 she joined the founding team of the editorial project Ardósia: Revista de Investigação em Desenho e Ilustração.