elena wise

Elena Wise is an independent curator, weaver, and researcher based in rural Germany. She was a 2025 ArtTable Fellow at The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, Alabama. She has worked on a number of international textile and heritage projects, including with Surface Design Association, the 18th International Triennial of Textile in Łódź, Poland, Bertas Flachs Handwerks Gilde, Textile Culture Net, and European Heritage Volunteers.
She has been awarded grants from the European Crafts Alliance and i-Portunus for her research, and she previously held the position of curatorial trainee at the TextielMuseum in the Netherlands. Her writing has appeared in Surface Design Journal, Modemuze, The Gay & Lesbian Review, and multiple exhibition catalogues.

In her research and curatorial practice, Elena is interested in how artists and heritage institutions engage with traditional craft techniques and cultural memory to address current social issues and imagine alternative futures.

Alongside her curatorial work, Elena maintains an ecological textile practice involving natural and local fiber cultivation, dyeing, spinning, and weaving, which informs her understanding of craft and cultural preservation. As a facilitator of public workshops, residencies, and research projects, she has collaborated with other artists and craftspeople to re-learn ancestral tools, materials and techniques which support cultural continuity and sustainable creative economies.

CURATORIAL:
- Guest Curator, Textiles for the End of the World, Surface Design Association (2025)
Curated international exhibition exploring ecological, activist, and craft-based responses to overlapping climate and social crises.

- ArtTable Fellow, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art (USA, 2025)
Developed research and curatorial concepts for exhibitions with Invisible Histories, the LGBTQ+ community archive of the American Deep South, focusing on queer textiles and craft.

- Curator-in-Training, TextielMuseum (Tilburg, NL, 2023–2024)
Supported exhibition development and research on textiles, sustainability, and heritage. Assistant curator for: Makers on Materials (2024), Designed to Dry (2024), Is it alive? (2023), Secrets of Making #3 (2023)

- Guest Curator, Textile Culture Net (International, 2023-2024)
Contributed to cross-institutional online exhibitions connecting textile institutions across Europe and Asia. Exhibitions: Torn and Sutured (2024), Soft activism (2024), another way of speaking (2024), The Unseen Self (2023)

PUBLICATIONS:
- The Lonely Machine: Marcos Kueh at De Fabriek - exhibition essay, De Fabriek Eindhoven, 2025

- Deconstruction / Reconstruction - 18th International Triennial of Textile, Central Museum of Textiles, Łódź, Poland - exhibition catalogue, author of artist biographies and artwork descriptions, 2025

Old Weavers, Young Spirit – In Conversation with Inga Skripka - Surface Design Journal, Summer 2025

- Textile Culture Backup - book, contributor & proofreader, 2024

- Why are three Ukrainian shepherd’s coats - gunyas - coming to Tilburg? - Modemuze.nl, 2023

- The Baroness of Body Art - The Gay & Lesbian Review, author, 2017

PROJECTS:
- Residency: Articulation of Architecture & Public Space - Offcity AiR, Czech Republic | 4/2025

- Creative Exchange Residency - European Craft Alliance, Germany | 3/2025

- Workshop Leader: Cayapa Queer Craft - Spore Initiative, Berlin | 25/7/2024

- Speaker: Textiles & Masculinities Conference - Design History Society, Online | 15/6/2024

EDUCATION:
Master of Arts (Dual)
Heritage Studies: Curating Art and Cultures
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Thesis: Queering Craft in the Baltics
2022-2025

Bachelor (laurea triennale)
Anthropology, Religions, Oriental Civilizations
University of Bologna, Italy
Thesis: Textiles in the Museum
2018-2022