“Wearable Art – Unseen Threads” is an installation consisting of 30 fashion objects, artistic textiles and new media. Joanna Hawrot’s international project will transform the luxurious Daimaru Centre – a place with a centuries-old tradition associated with the production and sale of traditional kimonos – into a gallery enriched with multimedia. Hawrot builds her manifesto on the foundation of the Polish School of Textiles, creating fashion interpretations of objects by Magdalena Abakanowicz and Wojciech Sadley.
The project is part of the cultural programme accompanying the EXPO 2025 World Exhibition organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. It is estimated that 128 million visitors from 161 countries will visit Osaka in connection with the exhibition. ‘Wearable Art – Unseen Threads’ will be on display from 31 May to 24 June 2025.
Joanna Hawrot ‘s exhibition is the only international project to take place in the prestigious Daimaru Shinsaibashi space during the EXPO 2025 World Exposition. The Polish artist’s works will be displayed in the main showcases, on the inter-floor levels and in the art gallery on the eighth floor. Such a wide-ranging exhibition not only emphasises the unique nature of the project, but also opens up new opportunities for Joanna Hawrot’s international career.
With twelve women’s stories set in the Japanese concept of jūnihitoe, inspiration from the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz and Wojciech Sadley, and art that crosses the boundaries of aesthetics and functionality, ‘Wearable Art – Unseen Threads’ redefines the concept of fashion as a form of artistic expression. Hawrot creates not just clothes, but meaningful structures that combine tradition with modernity, craft with technology and East with West.
For me, fabric has always been a carrier of history, a field of artistic intervention, a voice that, instead of being suppressed, rebukes or even demands to be heard. Digital patterns, on the other hand, do not trace the lines of the body, but allow it to redefine its presence in space,” explains Joanna Hawrot.
Wearable art according to Joanna Hawrot are sculptures in motion – objects that not only follow the body, but become part of a visual story. It is a textile archive of memory and a manifesto of what culture has exposed and what it has chosen to hide(#UnseenThreads). The project celebrates diversity and inclusivity by including people who are too often marginalised in the fashion world – the elderly, transgender people, the socially excluded. #UnseenThreads traces their stories on photographic paper by Zuza Krajewska, a photographer invited to join the project. A series of portraits taken in Osaka places fashion in the context of everyday life – on the street, in a restaurant kitchen, amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. Clothing and identity are intertwined here in a new story – full of power, possibility and the search for visibility, so essential in contemporary culture. Krajewska’s works will be part of a multimedia installation that accompanies the exhibition.
–Fashion is theatre, and Japan is a master of it – from nō to kabuki to the street stylings of Harajuku. Hawrot adds a new stage to this show, where history is intertwined with the present. ‘She doesn’t interpret Japanese tradition, she talks to it, sometimes questions it, filters it through her own sensibility and builds a new transcultural language of fabric,’ emphasises Dr Paweł Pachciarek, from the project’s curatorial team.
Angelika Markul‘s heart sculptures are an integral part of the exhibition ‘HAWROT: Wearable Art – Unseen Threads’. What appears in fabric as #UnseenThreads – the hidden thread – takes on a tangible form in this artist’s work. Her sculptures become a record of a presence that cannot be erased – a material trace of memory, tension and emotion.
Joanna Hawrot has also once again invited Tomek Wichrowski, a Warsaw-based goldsmith artist, to collaborate with her.
In creating a set dedicated to Osaka, we decided to return to the motifs from our first jewellery series. Alongside handmade chains, romantic touches appeared, this time inspired by Victorian charms and asymmetrical ‘Witch’s Heart’ hearts – ancient protective amulets, as well as symbols of love and friendship. We also used elements of the Hawrot brand logo in the form of small pendants. We wanted to combine inspirations in this way – from historical references to contemporary sensibilities ,” explains Wichrowski.
Joanna Hawrot’s project ‘Wearable Art – Unseen Threads’ – is realised in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Art & Design Festival as part of the Programme for the Promotion of Polish Culture in Japan during the World Exhibition EXPO 2025 in Osaka. The exhibition is both a tribute to tradition and a new narrative opening in the artist’s language of art and a related redefinition of the notion of WEARABLE ART. Fashion in the context of her work not only responds to social change, but also initiates it, being a bridge between cultures.
The Polish Investment and Trade Agency, the organiser of the Polish Pavilion at the World Exhibition EXPO 2025, is a partner of the project, which is financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
See also: Fashion | Designer | Japan
