THREADS OF LIFE Corina Gertz & Hannah Maria Schmutterer

With THREADS OF LIFE Corina Gertz & Hannah Maria Schmutterer, the Kunstforum of the Technical University of Darmstadt presents an exhibition that places textile practices, cultural identity, and questions of visibility at its center. The title serves as a programmatic motif: Threads of Life – Fäden des Lebens – refers to the manifold connections between fabric, body, history, and memory, which both artists make visible in their own distinctive ways.

Photographer Corina Gertz presents works from her ongoing series Das abgewandte Porträt (The Turned-Away Portrait), on which she has been working worldwide for many years. In her photographs, she portrays women in traditional clothing – always from behind. The face remains hidden; the clothing itself becomes a sign of history, craftsmanship, origin, and social belonging. The result is a quiet yet powerful engagement with themes such as diversity, inclusion, and the values of a democratic society.

“The garments speak of past craftsmanship, origin, family and social status, and in doing so reveal something about the identity of the wearer – without placing her personal individuality in the foreground.”
Corina Gertz

Hannah Maria Schmutterer expands this dialogue with works that weave together textile art, painting, poetry, and performance. Her works explore how femininity, memory, and cultural attributions are inscribed in fabrics – and how these meanings can be transformed through artistic practice. Through sewing, unpicking, and rejoining materials, both personal and collective threads of life become tangible and are newly interwoven.

“My main medium is the dress. Dresses as they appear in fairy tales, in folklore, in films, in pop culture, in literature, and in art … Dresses are symbolically charged objects with their own distinctive language and sociopolitical history.”
Hannah Maria Schmutterer

Together, Gertz and Schmutterer interlace different perspectives on femininity, memory, and cultural identity into a complex web of meanings: THREADS OF LIFE Corina Gertz & Hannah Maria Schmutterer thus becomes a sensuous and intellectual space of resonance in which photography, textile, and theory are woven into a fabric of history, present, and future.

Since 2016, under the direction of Julia Reichelt, M.A., the Kunstforum der TU Darmstadt has established itself as an innovative exhibition venue of national importance. It connects art, science, and urban society, utilizes both interior and exterior spaces, and offers a diverse program of interdisciplinary formats and art education.