Ira Bo and Saskia de Brauw Exhibition Curated by David Giroire

Ira Bo and Saskia de Brauw Exhibition Curated by David Giroire entitled ONE THREAD AT A TIME.

ONE THREAD AT A TIME, A dialogue between the work of Ira Bo and Saskia de Brauw, A duo show on contemporary weaving crafted from upcycled materials Exhibition from 8th to 31st of October 2025.

“When I first saw these works, I was struck by their subtle structures. Built with care, each element feels essential, each gesture deliberate. I saw in them a reflection of how I’ve shaped my own path, connection by connection, one thread at a time. What begins as an encounter becomes part of something greater. These works unfold in the same way. They are not immediate. They ask to be approached with attention. In return, they offer depth. Like connections built over time, they reveal themselves layer by layer.”

Nora Baldenweg, who presents her work under the name IRA BO, approaches weaving as both a gesture and a means of organizing thought. Her background in fashion and film music greatly informs her practice, which reflects on how we build, protect, and present ourselves. Through her hand-woven pieces, she explores the emotional and social roles textiles can hold, such as comfort, identity, visibility, and control. Her contemporary sculptures, which draw on traditional weaving techniques and materiality often emphasize repetition, asymmetry, texture and conceptual intent. By employing everyday materials, she creates visually striking, almost brutalist sculptures that convey a sense of groundedness and precision. Her work interrogates the viewer’s perception, offering a fresh take on an age-old craft. Saskia de Brauw works with found fragments, gathered from city streets and natural surroundings. Her process is meticulous and quiet. She scans, catalogs, and reassembles, utilizing the material in various ways. In her series The Accidental Weave, weaving becomes a way to interconnect what does not seem to belong, revealing unexpected narratives through association. Saskia’s practice centers around the use of the loom, where she weaves with recycled materials to create structured tapestries that are both deliberate and materially grounded. Her practice is influenced by movement, by her travels around the world as a model and her walks in nature and cities. These experiences shape her perspective and what she chooses to hold onto. Her work is distinguished by its restraint, clarity, and dedication to observation.

Both artists trace a shift in their practice from intuitive or traditional foundations to a more deliberate engagement with material, structure, and process, each arriving at a language shaped by attention, intention, intuition and form. Though distinct in style, both artists use weaving not only as a technique but also as a way of thinking. Through their work – using recycled and often discarded materials – they challenge conventional ideas of beauty and how we see the world around us. It reminds us to pay close attention to what is right beneath our feet and to see what we already have if we look more carefully. Their work carries memory, attention, and presence. Through material, they offer a way of seeing that values process over immediacy, and depth over display.

IRA BO is a Swiss Australian artist, born in 1981. She studied textiles at the Textilfachschule in Zurich in the early 2000’s and has been fascinated with textile creation all her life. “Throughout the years I have come to realise that the age-old concept of textile creation is the common thread in everything I do. It is ultimately how I express myself.” As a former editor-in-chief, and with successful careers as an internationally active creative director in fashion and a multi award-winning film music composer, her perspective on life as a constantly evolving weave deeply informs and feeds her artistic practice. “No matter what I do, it is my language, my thought process, it is how I conceive.” Offering a contemporary perspective on universal themes such as life, construction, materiality and circularity, in her practice IRA BO reinterprets the traditional craftsmanship of weaving, merging it with modern references and imbuing it with her own distinct sensibility. Her bold tactile works can be interpreted as either flags signalling a call for attention, or shields providing cover and protection, intricately woven to evoke both the fragility and resilience inherent in the fabric of life itself.

SASKIA DE BRAUW, was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1981. She began modeling at a young age but paused her work in the fashion industry to attend art school. After graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 2008, she returned to the modeling industry while continuing her artistic practice. In her artwork, she combines a variety of media, including writing, performance, and assemblage, working quietly on the fringes of contemporary art and fashion. She looks for small, often overlooked details of daily life and weaves together unlikely objects and narratives, often directly derived from her travels as a model. For many years, she carried a compact scanner with which she constructed a visual diary of found objects, such as broken rear-view mirrors, crushed plastic cups, and folded or trampled paper. She not only scanned but also meticulously cataloged these found objects, which now serve as archival references and inspiration for new work. A series of large-scale prints of these scans was exhibited at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh in 2014, and a book titled “The Accidental Fold” was published in 2016. For Louis Vuitton’s 200th anniversary in 2021, Saskia created a series of black and white images representing “lunar landscapes” composed of objects found on the streets of NYC. In her ongoing series, “The Accidental Weave”, she uses both her existing archive and continually adds material she finds on her walks through cities and in nature. By weaving them together, these seemingly unrelated items, found in seemingly unrelated places, become interconnected. Once woven together, they tell a story of their own.

DAVID GIROIRE, David Giroire works at the intersection of contemporary art and design. He advises artists, institutions, and brands in developing and enhancing their projects, and supports collectors and enthusiasts in building meaningful, thoughtful collections. His expertise spans both emerging and established scenes, guided by a sharp eye for current creative practices and evolving cultural trends. David is also the co-founder of Théorème Éditions, a French maison d’édition that collaborates with contemporary designers and the finest European craftsmen to create poetic works of furniture and objects.