Nordiska Museet Opens Its Largest Exhibition in Three Years – Featuring Exclusive Loans from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

In January 2027, Nordiska museet in Stockholm will open Threads, an exhibition about textiles and textile traditions. It is the museum’s largest exhibition since the opening of its acclaimed permanent exhibition Nordic Life in 2024.

For the first time, textiles and textile tools from Nordiska museet and a number of other museums across the Nordic region and Arctic will be brought together with world-famous ancient Greek antiquities from museums in the United States, Italy and Greece. Among the highlights is an exclusive six-month loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The result is an exhibition that takes visitors on a vibrant Nordic odyssey, opening new and exhilarating perspectives on historical and contemporary textile traditions – and on the women who have shaped them.

Threads explores how your world is woven. The exhibition follows these women, threads and textile craftsmanship on a thousand-year journey as knowledge passed down through generations, across millennia and over vast geographical distances.

It will feature more than 400 objects, as well as a large number of photographs, newly produced films and interviews. With one of Europe’s most extensive textile collections and a long-standing tradition of research into textile production, Nordiska museet is uniquely positioned to create such an exhibition as Threads.

At the same time, the exhibition speaks directly to the challenges of current times, exploring how millennia-old knowledge can inspire our future relationship with textiles – from new, innovative and sustainable initiatives to, perhaps, a more respectful relationship between humans, animals and nature.

A Dazzling New Perspective on Time

Thanks to generous loans from museums in the United States, Italy, Greece and the Nordic countries, Threads will place Nordic textile traditions within an entirely new historical perspective.

Highlights include two celebrated ancient Greek vases depicting weaving scenes. Almost 100 years ago, researchers at Nordiska museet highlighted these objects in studies of textile history. They were among the first to draw attention to the connections between ancient depictions of weaving and traditional textile craftsmanship in the Nordic region.

One of the vases is an ancient Greek figural oil flask, or lekythos, belonging to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which will be on exclusive loan to Nordiska museet.

“The vase is known for its unique and highly detailed depiction of women working at a loom in preparation for the wedding of a goddess or woman. The painting is by the Amasis Painter, who was active in Athens around 560–515 BCE and known for his refined miniature style,” says Sanne Houby-Nielsen, Director of Nordiska museet. “I am immensely proud of and grateful for the collaboration between Nordiska museet and so many leading museums. For the first time ever, our visitors will have the opportunity to see Nordic textile craftsmanship and explore knowledge in an entirely new context through loans of world-famous objects from ancient Greece. It is a dream exhibition.”

The second vase, a figural drinking vessel dating from around 440 BCE, on loan from the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Chiusi in Italy, depicts two well-known scenes from Homer’s Odyssey: Penelope seated at her loom in conversation with her son, Telemachus, and the moment Odysseus is recognised by his nurse.

The two vases, known to textile researchers for their early depictions of warp-weighted looms, will be displayed together in the same exhibition for the first time, alongside surviving warp-weighted looms from the Faroe Islands and Norway that remained in use well into the 20th century.

“We believe the timing of the exhibition is perfect as we are currently seeing a growing interest in traditional Nordic craft techniques and traditions. At the same time, there is a kind of Odysseyfever surrounding Christopher Nolan’s film. Many have seen Anne Hathaway as Penelope. In a way, Threads is a tribute to all the anonymous girls and women who throughout our history spent their lives at looms without recognition of their hard work and skills,” says Director Sanne Houby-Nielsen.

From Millennia-Old Knowledge to a Question for the Future

For thousands of years, people around the world have spun fibres into threads and joined them to create textiles that warm, protect and adorn both them and their homes. Thread, textiles and the knowledge required to create them have held great symbolic, social and economic value.

It is thread that connects us to people who lived thousands of years ago – to their everyday lives, craftsmanship and ways of imagining and understanding the world.

Threads appear in myths, legends and folktales. Threads, textiles and textile tools have served as symbolic objects in celebrations, parades and festivities – indeed, in rituals of all kinds.

“What would we humans be without textiles? It is with Threads that we also wish to explore our textile heritage and how our relationship with textiles has changed: from a vital and highly valued resource that required time, labour and knowledge, to today’s culture of overconsumption and the questions surrounding sustainability, profitability and the future of textile production,” says Ulla-Karin Warberg, curator at Nordiska museet. She continues: “We are placing the Nordic thread in an entirely new light. Nothing quite like this has ever been done before.”

Accompanying the exhibition is a major publication, available in both Swedish and English, to which more than fifty authors from ten countries have contributed research and personal perspectives that offer new insights into the textile heritage of the Nordic region.

In addition, Nordiska museet will develop an extensive public programme for Threads, featuring more than fifteen events spanning materials from the past and the future, talks and workshops, in-depth explorations and hands-on activities.

Notes to editors:

Opening date: 22 January 2027

Exhibition producer: Ylva Lewenhaupt

Curator in charge: Ulla-Karin Warberg

Exhibition designer: Marcia Harvey Isaksson