Last week, Lottozero's Lab Manager took part in a five-day staff exchange at FarmLab in Kapfenstein, Austria, as part of the European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) Peer to Peer programme.

Hosted by Silvia, Martin and their family, the exchange offered an opportunity to experience first-hand how a rural creative hub operates, exploring the relationship between making, local knowledge, nature and community engagement. Throughout the week, the programme combined practical activities, discussions and shared experiences, highlighting how creative hubs can respond to the specific needs of their local contexts while remaining connected to an international network of practitioners.

The visit focused on FarmLab's textile activities and local material practices. Alongside learning about indigo dyeing and wool processing, the exchange also included the installation of a new tufting station in FarmLab's textile studio, creating new opportunities for future workshops and experimentation.

Beyond the practical work, the exchange provided valuable space for dialogue, sharing experiences and discussing different approaches to managing creative hubs. It was a pleasure to share the week with Natsuka, Angie and the DesignLabGive team, whose perspectives and conversations made the experience even richer.

At Lottozero, we strongly believe that international exchanges like these are essential for strengthening the European creative hub ecosystem. They foster meaningful collaborations, encourage the sharing of knowledge and skills, and inspire new ways of working that can be brought back to our local communities.

We would like to sincerely thank the European Creative Hubs Network for making this experience possible through the Peer to Peer programme, and FarmLab for their generous hospitality and openness throughout the week.

patron/ise reflects on the residency as a model of artistic production within today’s art system.
The exhibition, developed through six months of residency within the Textile Art Factory programme, engages with the dichotomy between what becomes visible in the artwork and what remains hidden within the dynamics and conditions of the creative process.

Taking shape in relation to Prato’s textile context and its factories, the exhibition looks at an art system that continues to produce while much of the labour that precedes and sustains it remains unseen: conversations, adaptations, emotional labour, exhaustion, endurance, and compromise.

The installations and sculptures on view speak about labour while also carrying traces of the labour that generated them. Buonanno addresses factory work, protest, disability, vulnerability, and endurance; Filipović and Bucur transform local remnants of production into narratives of migration, childhood, and memory; and Cipriani incorporates discarded machinery to reveal the hidden infrastructures of textile production.
Together, their works hold the tensions of the place in which they were made, the structures that enabled them, and the compromises that shaped them.

Curated by Ester Maria d’Avossa.
Artists: Lorena Bucur, Carmen Buonanno, Linda Ann Cipriani, Nikola Filipović

Opening: 14.07.2026, h 18:30
15.07 – 11.10.2026

Lottozero, Via Arno 10, Prato
Mon – Thu 10-18; Fri 10-16; Sat and Sun by appointment
T. 0574 22883 / info@lottozero.org

Textile Art Factory is a project by Lottozero, Museo del Tessuto and SC17, funded by the Regional Programme FSE+ Tuscany 2021–2027, under the Public Notice approved by D.D. n. 138/2024, and part of Giovanisì, the Tuscany Region’s initiative for youth autonomy.

Emma Buswell, The Pool (The Lady of Shallot), 2024, knitted wool and lurex yarns, 430 x 270cm (detail)

Emma Buswell, Endlessly Circling Fields, 2026, knitted lurex, wool, cotton, nylon yarn 150 x 290 cm

Emma Buswell is a West Australian based artist, curator and designer.

Emma is fascinated with systems of government, economies and culture particularly in relation to constructs of place, identity and community. Her current work is focusing on relationships between identity and place, with a motivated enquiry into the way in which kitsch and nostalgia play into our understandings of self-identification and personal histories. Using Tropes appropriated from popular culture and Australian art history, Buswell examines her own family histories intuited through conversations and the learnt craft techniques from her maternal family line

During her three-week residency at Lottozero, Emma will explore the felt loom as an extension of her textile practice. Building on her research into handcraft traditions, women's labour and textile histories, she will investigate how industrial felt-making can open up new material and visual possibilities.

Emma Buswell has had solo exhibitions across Western Australia and Victoria, and is collected in the State Collection of Western Australia, Artbank, the City of Joondalup and a number of private collections.

Join us for the final exhibition of the first cycle of Textile Art Factory, a residency programme dedicated to contemporary textile practices, organized by Lottozero, Sudio Corte 17 and Museo del Tessuto di Prato.
After six months of research, experimentation, and production in dialogue with the textile district of Prato, the residents will present the outcomes of their work in a collective exhibition.

The exhibition presents new works by Carmen Buonanno, Linda Ann Cipriani, Lorena Bucur and Nikola Filipović, developed throughout the residency and curated by Ester Maria d’Avossa.

The exhibition opens on Tuesday, 14 July, from 6:30 PM to 10:00 PM, at the Lottozero Kunsthalle.
See you there!

Textile Art Factory is a project by Lottozero, Museo del Tessuto and SC17, funded by the Regional Programme FSE+ Tuscany 2021–2027, under the Public Notice approved by D.D. n. 138/2024, and part of Giovanisì, the Tuscany Region’s initiative for youth autonomy.

Carla Schwering is a textile and costume designer, born in Vienna and based in Munich. After studying theatre science and art history at LMU Munich alongside an assistantship at the Residenztheater, she continued her education in stage and costume design, film, and exhibition architecture at the Mozarteum Salzburg. She has collaborated with theatres and cultural institutions including the Burgtheater Vienna, the Goethe-Institut Paris, and the Bregenzer Festspiele. During an Erasmus year at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, she further developed her focus on textile design.

Working across costume, textiles, film, photography, and spatial design, Carla combines drawing, material experimentation, and narrative imagery to create fictional worlds that reflect and reinterpret contemporary society. During her two-week residency at Lottozero, she is experimenting with manual and digital jacquard weaving, developing textile pieces for a film installation that forms part of her diploma thesis at the Mozarteum Salzburg.

Carla Schwering, drawing for costume design for the opera Dido & Aeneas, directed by Rosamund Gilmore, presented at Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena, 2023

Paulina Włostowska

Paulina Włostowska and Michał Szczęsny Szuwar, Museum of Warsaw, 2023.

As a duo artistic collective, Paulina Włostowska and Michał Szuwar have undertaken projects involving textiles, painting, lettering and printmaking.
As a visual artist, Paulina Włostowska explores the status of decorative arts in the context of post-war Polish history, as well as their contemporary significance. Together with Michał
Szuwar, they have been carrying out projects for several years that straddle the boundary between craft and fine art within the aforementioned fields, as well as murals and fabric by the metre.
Michał Szuwar runs lettering and textural painting studios, where he utilises goldsmithing and screen-printing techniques.
Both are actively engaged as visual artists while also exploring craftsmanship and technology, particularly in the context of large-format mural painting.

During their 2-week residency at Lottozero, they will develop collaborative textile pattern designs, experimenting with screen printing and weaving techniques.

The residency is co- financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland - Adam Mickiewicz Institute

The moment many of you have been waiting for has arrived: the second open call for TEXTILE ART FACTORY is now open.

If you are a contemporary artist eager to deepen your relationship with textile practices, experiment with materials and techniques, and spend six months immersed in one of Europe’s most historically rich textile districts, this residency is for you.

From 5 October 2026 to 5 April 2027, selected artists will take part in an intensive programme combining formal and non-formal learning, hands-on experimentation and artistic research. Participants will explore techniques including weaving, embroidery, dyeing, printing, felting and knitting through workshops, talks, studio and factory visits, one-on-one mentoring, and daily exchange with the Lottozero team and invited international professionals.

The residency will culminate in a final exhibition and publication.

Residents will live together in our shared apartment, receive a dedicated workspace and full access to the textile laboratory, and receive a monthly stipend of €500.

If you are:
– under 36
– Italian-speaking (minimum B1 level)
– not in formal education
– not employed full-time

don’t miss this opportunity.

Applications are open until 15 June 2026.
More information and how to apply here

Textile Art Factory is a project by Lottozero, Museo del Tessuto and SC17, funded by the Regional Programme FSE+ Tuscany 2021–2027, under the Public Notice approved by D.D. n. 138/2024, and part of Giovanisì, the Tuscany Region’s initiative for youth autonomy.

The W4TEX project has recently completed a productive phase, advancing its mission to empower women to lead the green transition in the textile sector.

Between October 2025 and January 2026, partners organised a series of National Ideathons, bringing together participants to develop innovative, circular solutions for real-world textile challenges. These workshops focused on entrepreneurship, green skills, and the application of circular economy principles across diverse local contexts.

This process culminated in the Transnational Ideathon in Larissa, Greece (27–29 January 2026), where participants from all partner countries collaborated in international teams to address global fashion and sustainability challenges, while strengthening leadership and strategic skills.

The project has also released its Trainers’ Guide and Ideathon Training Materials, alongside key resources including the Be A Manager course, the Women Think Green Toolkit, and a series of vidcasts. Together, these outputs support skills development and sustainable innovation in the textile sector.

Access all the materials produced by the W4Tex project here.

Read the full newsletter in English and Italian.

Read the project’s final press release here.

This spring, Lottozero contributed to two key moments of exchange and learning around the future of fashion.

In collaboration with Simone Business Club, we delivered an online masterclass exploring critical issues shaping today’s industry, including sustainability, transparency, fashion, intellectual property, design theft, and the importance of authenticity. The recorded session is available to watch on YouTube.

Lottozero also took part in the Fashion For Future 2026 festival in Bolzano, where we led the workshop “No Fake Fashion: Behind the Label – Traceability, Transparency and the Future of Fashion.” The session invited designers, students, and consumers to critically examine garment labels, uncover greenwashing practices, and reflect on the role of traceability and Digital Product Passports in building more transparent systems. A key focus was the need to protect creative work and ensure recognition for designers within global supply chains.

To further explore these topics, check out the No Fake Fashion online course, designed to help designers protect their creative assets and navigate challenges related to intellectual property and authenticity in fashion.

Lottozero is looking for an experienced Textile Specialist to join our team in Prato.

This is a 12-month full-time freelance collaboration (Partita IVA) with an immediate start, designed for a hands-on, curious professional eager to work across textile production, laboratory practice and project development within a dynamic and growing environment.

The role sits at the core of Lottozero’s activities, working closely with Arianna Moroder and contributing to the development of our design studio and textile microfactory. The selected candidate will support and manage projects, collaborate with designers, companies and artists, and take part in research, sampling, production and consultancy processes, from sourcing materials and techniques to coordinating logistics and client relationships.

We are looking for someone with solid experience in textile processes and machinery (minimum 5 years of PROVEN experience), fluent in Italian and English, with a strong interest in local production, sustainability and short supply chains. Independence, initiative and a practical, problem-solving mindset are essential, as well as the ability to move fluidly between creative and technical tasks.

The position offers a central role within an international, multidisciplinary environment, with opportunities to contribute to innovative projects and to shape the future of Lottozero’s textile production activities. A long-term position may follow the initial collaboration.

For more information and to apply; please fill out this form

Lottozero is pleased to launch an open call for a 2-day workshop in Prato dedicated to fashion design for recyclability, taking place on May 23–24, 2026.

The workshop is part of the European project IMASUS, a practice-based initiative that connects academic research on sustainable fashion materials with the real needs of designers, supporting the integration of circular design strategies into contemporary practice.

Rethinking fashion through circular design

Focusing on design for recyclability, the workshop combines textile innovation, circular economy principles, and hands-on design development. Participants will explore how garments can be conceived from the outset with their end-of-life in mind, challenging conventional approaches to materials, construction, and production.

Hosted in collaboration with fashion designer Eva Di Franco, the workshop offers a collaborative environment where participants will engage directly with innovative design approaches rooted in circularity.

What participants will do

Over two days, participants will:

• Explore circular design strategies with a focus on recyclability and disassembly

• Work with the IMASUS structured design toolkit

• Develop a prototype garment concept

• Produce design outputs including flats, material specifications, and construction guidelines

• Create a tech pack ready for production, integrating circular principles

• Receive feedback from industry professionals

Through a combination of guided sessions and independent work, the workshop encourages both creative experimentation and practical application.

Who should apply

The open call is aimed at:

• Fashion designers

• Emerging designers and recent graduates

• Professionals interested in sustainable and circular fashion

We are looking for participants who are motivated to critically engage with their design process and explore new approaches to sustainability.

Apply here until May 9 (end of day)

As the first cycle of the residency is currently underway, we are excited to announce the second open call for Italian-speaking CURATORS UNDER 36 for TEXTILE ART FACTORY, offering a six-month residency in Prato from 5 October 2026 to 5 April 2027.

If you are an emerging contemporary art curator eager to deepen your understanding of textile practices, this 6-month residency offers a unique opportunity to develop your curatorial research within a dynamic environment in the heart of the textile district.
The program combines theoretical and practical learning, including structured training, studio and factory visits, workshops, and one-on-one mentoring.

The selected curator will be in residence together with four artists, who will be selected through a dedicated open call launching in the coming weeks. Throughout the six months, the curator will closely follow the artists’ research and development, supporting their practices and guiding them towards the realization of a final exhibition, which they will curate, along with an accompanying publication.
Residents will be hosted in a shared apartment, provided with a dedicated workspace, and will have full access to the textile lab.
A monthly stipend of €500 will also be provided.

Requirements:
– Italian-speaking (minimum B1 level)
– Under 36
– Not enrolled in formal education
– Not employed

The call for curators is open until the 15th of May 2026, and the selected curator will be involved in the selection of the participating artists.
More info here

Textile Art Factory is a project by Lottozero, Museo del Tessuto and SC17, funded by the Regional Programme FSE+ Tuscany 2021–2027, under the Public Notice approved by D.D. n. 138/2024, and part of Giovanisì, the Tuscany Region’s initiative for youth autonomy.

Mariken Wessels (1963, the Netherlands) creates artist’s books, photo series, film works, sculptures, and installations. Her multilayered projects interweave appropriated imagery and self-produced images to reimagine the boundaries between the public and private spheres, as well as the role of bodily expression.

In her practice she investigates dynamics of voyeurism, authorship, and power, engaging with the physicality of the body across media—from photographic archives to clay-based sculptural forms— while exploring its construction within visual cultures shaped by erotic and pornographic imagery. Through processes of transformation and displacement, these references are reworked into a critical and poetic language that questions the historical and patriarchal frameworks underpinning the representation of the female body.

During her six-week residency at Lottozero, Mariken Wessels will develop a new series of textile works, combining techniques such as printing, painting, and digital embroidery. In this context, she extends her research into the material and tactile dimensions of textiles, advancing a feminist inquiry into the body in its multiple expressions and vulnerabilities.

Prior to her visual practice, Wessels studied acting at the Amsterdam Theater School and, following a decade-long acting career, pursued visual arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. She has held solo exhibitions at Fotomuseum Antwerp (2016) and Fotomuseum Den Haag (2017), and her publications include Taking Off. Henry my Neighbor (2015), Miss Cox (2020), and Fruits of Labor (2023). Her works are part of major international collections, including Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the International Center of Photography (New York), and the Museum of Modern Art Library (New York).

Mariken Wessels, Arising from the Ground – Model Cox I, 2018, part of the series Model Cox consisting of 4 pieces, glazed ceramic, 160 x 40 x 80 cm, with plinth: 190 x 130 x 80 cm. Unique piece.

Come join us on April 19th, 2026, from 15:00 to 21:00, for a Fashion Exchange and Upcycling event presented by the Solistice project!

A garment swap event in Prato dedicated to circular fashion, creativity and community with a DJ set throughout the day and the chance to visit Puzzle, the exhibition by Daniela De Lorenzo.

Alongside the swap, from 16:00 to 19:00, you can take part in our Upcycling Lab, bringing a garment you no longer use and transforming it through simple hands-on techniques like embroidery, printing and stitching.

How does a swap party work?
Guests are invited to bring up to 10 clean, good-quality items (clothing, accessories, bags, jewellery). For each item, you’ll receive tickets to exchange for something new to you.

More infos coming soon...

We are thrilled to announce an OPEN CALL to select 10 participants who will have the opportunity to attend a one-day workshop with the one and only Studio Claudy Jongstra free of charge!!

Organised especially for Lottozero and Museo del Tessuto di Prato, and developed in collaboration with both organisations, Studio Claudy Jongstra will lead a one-day workshop on Tuesday, 7 April 2026 in the spaces of Lottozero in Prato.

During the workshop, participants will explore a range of techniques, including felting, spinning, and weaving, while also engaging with Jongstra’s philosophy. For her, teaching these techniques means ensuring that such skills remain a living, breathing part of our future. She sees wool as a powerful tool for sustainability, autonomy, and cultural preservation.

Since the beginning of her career, Claudy Jongstra has developed as an artist, designer, alchemist, educator, and, above all, activist, with a strong and forward-looking vision of how we can live together in harmony with nature, mindful of its power and beauty.

She envisions a biodynamic and humane alternative to agriculture, as well as to the arts, crafts, and textiles, alongside a social and inclusive community built on mutual support and intergenerational knowledge exchange.

Apply by filling out this form (CV, portfolio, short motivation letter)

Applications are open until March 25, 2026.

This Open Call is part of Textile Art Factory a project by Lottozero, Museo del Tessuto and SC17, funded by the Regional Programme FSE+ Tuscany 2021–2027, under the Public Notice approved by D.D. n. 138/2024, and part of Giovanisì, the Tuscany Region’s initiative for youth autonomy.

Over the past months, Lottozero has been actively working on GreenLift, a European project focused on supporting the green and digital transition of the Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear (TCLF) sectors.

The sector is facing major transformations driven by sustainability goals, digitalisation, new regulatory frameworks and shifting global supply chains. These changes bring opportunities — but also challenges for workers, companies and especially SMEs. GreenLift is building holistic strategies that connect skills development, decent work, and inclusive transitions in a rapidly evolving landscape. So far, the project has reached key milestones that lay the groundwork for future workforce resilience:

Emerging Skills Intelligence for Textiles and Fashion
In late 2025, GreenLift completed its WP3 Final Report on Skills Intelligence, establishing shared methods for identifying changing and emerging skills needs in the TCLF sector. Through cross-country research, surveys, and industry engagement, the consortium mapped priority areas such as digitalisation, sustainability practices, traceability, and circular economy competencies — insights that now feed into broader European and national education strategies.

Integrating Decent Work with Transition Pathways
GreenLift underscores that the sustainable transition isn’t just technological — it’s social. The work links skills planning with decent work principles and evolving EU policies on responsible supply chains, emphasising worker wellbeing and inclusive workplace cultures as essential pillars of sustainable transformation.

Worker Well-Being in the Digital Era
Alongside technical competencies, GreenLift has brought attention to psychosocial risks and mental well-being associated with organisational change and digital adoption, helping ensure that sustainable transitions are human-centred and future-ready.

GreenLift represents a collaborative step toward equipping people and organisations with the knowledge, networks, and tools to navigate and shape the future of work in textile and fashion.

Read the full newsletter here (available also in Italian).

We’ll continue sharing updates as the project evolves and as GreenLift’s insights translate into practical resources and opportunities for the TCLF community.

Embroidery, airbrush on used packing blanket. Text by the artist's great grandmother, Josephine Waggoner. Encroachment of white settlers and soldiers on Indian land.

Stencil, embroidery, beadwork on used packing blanket. Text by the artists great grandmother, Josephine Waggoner, speaking about the advancement of white settlements on Indian land.

Lynne Allen is a visual artist drawn to subjects that history has marginalized or erased: extinct animals, Native traditions, the homeless, prisoners, and the contested myths of the American West. Her work challenges dominant narratives and the power structures behind them.

Discarded objects are central to her practice. Bullet casings, flattened bottle caps, fish hooks, and worn blankets enter into dialogue with beadwork and embroidery, transforming found materials into sculptural wall hangings.
Through printmaking—etching, woodcut, and lithography—she develops a form of visual storytelling that gives voice to animals, the unloved, and victims of injustice.
Her engagement with Native American history is both political and personal. Descended from women of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota, this lineage informs her exploration of Indigenous histories, approached through a dual perspective that acknowledges both the conquered and the conquerors, and the power dynamics embedded within that history.

During her month-long residency at Lottozero —made possible through the support of the 2025 Guggenheim Fellows — she will experiment with textile materials and techniques, ranging from felting and knitting to digital embroidery.

Allen holds an MFA from the University of New Mexico and an MA for Teachers from the University of Washington. Currently, she is a Professor of Art at Boston University, where she has also served as Director of the School of Visual Arts and Dean of the College of Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the North Dakota Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, as well as in major international print biennials in China, Portugal, Russia, and Estonia.

We are thrilled to announce the last exhibition of our Soft Sculpture biennial program, with the solo show by Daniela De Lorenzo

Puzzle, explores the enigma of the body, simultaneously subject and object in perceiving itself, in an impossible self-representation.

For Daniela De Lorenzo, the self-portrait is essentially an act of withdrawal from the self—an unfulfilled act, deferred or displaced elsewhere, fragmentary. In this sense, it traverses and shapes much of her artistic production, both sculptural and photographic. The felt sculptures are casts of her own body, which imprints itself into the moistened layers of industrial felt—a material itself produced through the pressure of wool fibers—chosen by the artist for its ability to retain the memory of gesture, returning the spasm of a contraction or the release of tension in the fall of a limb under the force of gravity.

For her solo exhibition at Lottozero, De Lorenzo presents a new series of felt sculptures that incorporates a core of pre-existing works within an installation-based, environmental arrangement, transforming the Lottozero Kunsthalle into a score of poses and gazes.

With Daniela De Lorenzo’s solo exhibition, the two-year exhibition program (2025–2026) that Lottozero has dedicated to Soft Sculpture comes to an end. Through the positions of four artists—Chiara Bettazzi, Liselore Frowijn, Barbara Prenka, and Daniela De Lorenzo—textile has emerged as a vehicle for a plastic language articulated through fold and drapery, soft cast, padding and covering, tracing pathways of meaning and reflections on identity, care, and the political and invisible infrastructure of the body.

The exhibition os realized with the support of Toscanaincontemporanea 2025

Opening: March 6, h 18.30
From 07.03 to 31.05.2026
Mon-Thu 10.00-18.00, Fri 10.00-16.00, Sat and Sun by appointment
info@lottozero.org / Tel 0574 22883