The Sun as Construction and Deconstruction

Zala Orel is the director of the BIEN Textile Art Biennial, which is part of the European Capital of Culture programme and is currently presented in the gallery GONG in Nova Gorica. She understands textiles as contemporary art, anthropology, tradition and definitely as a field of research. She is a trained communication scientist and a PhD student at Charles University in Prague, where she studies the development of culture in Central Europe through the European Capitals of Culture. She also led the content part of the project for Kranj's candidature for the title of European Capital  of Culture.     Through BIEN, which she manages, she has connected four Slovenian cities, Kranj, Škofja Loka, Jesenice and Nova Gorica. This year, the central theme of this artistic event is "the sun". Myth, legend, sacred. The one that creates the shadow. The key element of collapse and survival. Construction and deconstruction. Energy and source. Art and community. The production of meanings and practices of textile culture. At the same time, the Textile Art Biennial aims to draw attention to the dangers of the growing environmental and climate crisis.