Izabela Stronias & Michał Szulc, PL

Weaving camouflage nets for Ukraine

Nebula migrante (detail), photo by the artists

White Dwarf (detail), photo by the artists

The idea of weaving war tapestries , camouflage nets was born after a telephone conversation, when a friendly professor of the Lviv Academy of Arts, Zenovia Shulga, said that they needed camouflage nets more than anything else. We immediately organized a campaign to help. Our Academy of Fine Arts is located in Lodz, a city where it is easy to get fabrics. Using our connections, we got the first fabrics, Lodz clothing companies were eager to help us. It was our academic weaving room, where we started weaving nets, that gradually more and more students and academic, technical administrative staff came. All institutes of our Academy became involved in weaving nets. Students from other universities and high schools also came. We have been weaving nets, already called War Arras, since the beginning of the war. The weavers were about 1,000 people. We wove about 300 nets of 5,x5,5m format and larger ones. The method of weaving was changing. We looked for better and better ways, all the time being in contact with friends from the Lviv Academy. After two weeks of weaving, we moved to the LOOK gallery at the Academy in Lodz. The nets took on more and more individual character, depending on the person weaving. When our friends from Lviv sent us photos of our nets documenting their use we were able to determine which person was weaving them. They further added: "Your war tapestries save lives." The war tapestries, ennobled to a work of art, took part in the "Rapprochements" exhibition as part of the Lodz of Four Cultures festival.

Izabela Stronias, PL

Izabela Stronias graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and Cracow. Her field of artistic activity is stage design and theatrical and film costumes, as well as painting. She designs scenery and costumes for television theater, drama theaters, operas, ballets and films. She has worked with Polish, French, Chinese and German directors. Izabela Stronias has received three Golden Masks for her theatrical work - for costumes for the play "Intrigue and Love" (Jaracz Theater in Lodz), for stage design and costumes for the play "Kobro" (New Theater in Lodz), for stage design and costumes for the opera "Semele" (Grand Theater in Lodz). She was awarded the Polish Film Academy's "Eagle 2019" for her costumes for the „Kamerdyner" film. In addition to her film and theater activities, she is involved in painting. Her works were recently shown at the Sisley Foundation Gallery in Paris. She runs the Theater and Film Costume Studio at the Fashion Design Institute at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz.

Michał Szulc, PL

Michał Szulc. Born in 1983, designer and lecturer. Head of the Fashion Design Institute at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz. For more than 17 years he has been involved in the fashion industry as the head designer of underwear brands and men's collections. He has presented his collections at shows in Poland and abroad. Szulc's designs are published by magazines: VOGUE, ELLE, Zwierciadło, KMAG, Gala, Viva! and others. He was twice a scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

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