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

On Saturday, 24 January 2026, at 6 pm, Lottozero is pleased to welcome writer and translator June Scialpi for a presentation of Garments Against Women by Anne Boyer (“Indumenti contro le donne”, Tic Edizioni, 2025), in conversation with Sandra Branca and Stefania Zampiga.

In a time marked by complex social and political threads, this encounter stems from a desire to connect practices, materials, and ways of thinking—unlearning and learning through dialogue. Scialpi’s translation, which moves across languages and geographies, opens a space to explore contemporary “other” writings that stitch together questions, suspensions, and shifting positions in everyday experience.
Between poetry and prose, between essay and lyric, Boyer’s work unfolds through layered reflections, emotions, and inquiries. Together, we attempt to understand the fabric we inhabit—a fabric that is constantly forming and unforming, shaping and reshaping us.

The event will be in Italian.

Anne Boyer is an American poet, essayist, and professor from Kansas, known for her experimental and politically engaged writing, exploring themes of feminism, capitalism, illness, and resistance. She won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for The Undying and is the author of Romance of Happy Workers (2008), My Common Heart (2011), and The Handbook of Disappointed Fate (2018).

June Scialpi works across queer and transfeminist studies and writes both poetry and prose. Her publications include Il Golem. L’interruzione (Fallone 2022, Premio Flaiano 2023, Under 35 Poetry), Condotta del simbionte (Isola 2023), In mezzo ai giorni (i) dati (Zacinto 2024), and Retriever (Tic Edizioni 2025).

This Friday, January 16 at 18:30, we will host a special project by CUT Circuito Urbano Temporaneo, part of the series “Archivi domestici | documentare il quotidiano.”

Originating from a weaving exercise notebook preserved for over fifty years, the Domestic Archive of textile technician Piero Sanesi (b. 1939) unfolds into a wider narrative of Prato’s textile district. Rediscovered by his daughter Elena, this family object becomes the starting point for retracing Sanesi’s studies at the ITS Tullio Buzzi, his work in local mills, and the story of a city in transformation—where domestic looms and agricultural life slowly gave way to industrial production.
Through oral history, archival materials, photographs, and dedicated audio recordings, the project interweaves personal memory with collective heritage. The narrative expands through podcasts and theatrical walks created with Spazio Teatrale all’Incontro, retracing Sanesi’s journey from a mezzadri family to a key role in Prato’s textile world.

For this presentation at Lottozero, a selection of family materials and publications on the Prato textile district will be displayed inside an archival cabinet—a format chosen by CUT for their ongoing project “Archivi domestici | documentare il quotidiano,” which aims to share private material and immaterial heritage through contemporary artistic and multimedia practices, making otherwise inaccessible domestic archives newly available to the public.

The work on the Sanesi Archive is the result of a multidisciplinary team:
Research: Stefania Rinaldi
Photography: Simone Ridi
Audio + Podcasts: Viola Pierozzi & Simone Cariota
Theatrical walks: Massimo Bonechi, Francesco Dendi & Tommaso Carovani

Lottozero is pleased to share an open call launched within the framework of the European project IMASUS – Identifying, Mapping and Analysing Sustainable and Innovative Materials, aimed at designers, universities, startups, companies, research centres, creative practitioners and material innovators working on sustainable textile solutions.

The open call is addressed to anyone developing biomaterials, recycled fibres, waste-based materials or innovative sustainable processes.

Participants are invited to submit their material through an online form to be included in the IMASUS database. The application also includes a section dedicated to the challenges currently faced in the development or production process. Contributors may optionally send a physical sample (minimum 10 × 10 cm) to be analysed and included in the IMASUS physical material library.

Selected participants will gain visibility through the IMASUS Open Material Directory and App, access to a European network of research centres, creative hubs and sustainable brands, and the opportunity to receive scientific micro-analysis of their materials through Scanning Electron Microscopy imaging carried out by CSIC / INMA Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon researchers.

The call is open until 28 February 2026. Early submissions will be prioritised for inclusion in the first platform releases and related activities.

More information and application here:

Amelia Skelton is a multidisciplinary artist based on Gadigal Land (Sydney, Australia). Amelia’s practice is rooted in a methodology of working slowly and critically through found, discarded, kept and collected objects and materials, with a significant focus on textiles. Skelton’s practice meditates on the complexity of these things, interrogating their abundance, familiarity, significance and inextricable political implications. 

During her time at Lottozero, Amelia is combining textiles and photography using screenprinting, digital embroidery and the TC2 Loom, creating a series of works that respond to the notion of textiles as a material that both literally and figuratively mediates our experience of the world.

Amelia Skelton’s residency is made possible through the support of Create NSW

Amelia Skelton, Some things last a lifetime, 2023, found fabric, digital print on Belgium linen, embroidery thread, cotton thread, satin bias binding, painted frame, 64 x 67.5 cm. 
Photograph credit - Document Photography 

ENG

Start: ASAP
Location: Prato (on-site presence required)

This junior freelance role is ideal for someone who is quick, reliable, and visually intuitive, with a good understanding of social media and an interest in fashion, textiles, and culture. The freelancer will support the Lottozero team with communication tasks, focusing primarily on content creation and maintaining our social media presence.

Main Areas of Activity:

Social Media Content

– Produce and edit photos and short videos/reels
– Create simple graphics or layouts for posts and stories
– Draft and schedule posts for Instagram and LinkedIn
– Maintain a consistent tone and visual language

Documentation & On-Site Support

– Capture images and videos of projects, events, and day-to-day activity at Lottozero
– Organize and archive visual material for future use

Basic Communication Tasks

– Prepare short captions, announcements, or updates
– Help keep the communication calendar organized

This position is well suited to someone at the beginning of their professional journey who is flexible, independent, and visually driven. It offers a steady, small monthly collaboration and the opportunity to grow skills in communication within a creative, multidisciplinary environment.

Apply here

ITA

Posizione freelance: Junior Social Media & Communication Support

Inizio: il prima possibile
Sede: Prato (presenza in sede richiesta)

Questa posizione freelance junior è ideale per una persona veloce, affidabile e con una forte sensibilità visiva, che abbia una buona conoscenza dei social media e un interesse per moda, tessile e cultura. La/Il freelancer supporterà il team di Lottozero nelle attività di comunicazione, con particolare focus sulla creazione di contenuti e sul mantenimento della nostra presenza sui social media.

Principali aree di attività

Contenuti per i social media
– Produzione e montaggio di foto e brevi video/reel
– Creazione di semplici grafiche o layout per post e stories
– Stesura e programmazione di contenuti per Instagram e LinkedIn
– Mantenimento di un tono di voce e di un linguaggio visivo coerenti

Documentazione e supporto in sede
– Realizzazione di foto e video di progetti, eventi e attività quotidiane a Lottozero
– Organizzazione e archiviazione del materiale visivo per usi futuri

Attività di comunicazione di base
– Preparazione di brevi testi, annunci o aggiornamenti
– Supporto nell’organizzazione del calendario editoriale

Questa posizione è adatta a chi si trova all’inizio del proprio percorso professionale, è flessibile, autonomo e guidato da una forte attitudine visiva. Offre una collaborazione mensile continuativa ma di piccola entità e l’opportunità di sviluppare competenze di comunicazione all’interno di un ambiente creativo e multidisciplinare.

Candidati qui

Lottozero is proud to contribute to No Fake Fashion, an Erasmus+ initiative dedicated to helping small and independent fashion brands protect their creativity in an increasingly competitive and fast-moving market. The project focuses on giving emerging designers and textile SMEs the tools they need to defend their work against design theft and counterfeiting—issues that disproportionately affect smaller businesses with fewer resources to safeguard their intellectual property. Through training in AI-powered authentication, product traceability, and practical IPR strategies, the project empowers brands to claim their value and maintain control over their original designs.

As part of this effort, the consortium is developing 12 focused training pills covering essential skills for today’s fashion landscape. These include understanding intellectual property rights, recognizing and preventing counterfeiting, navigating e-commerce risks, and mastering key digital competencies such as AI-based image recognition, blockchain tracking systems, and cybersecurity. Each module will be offered in multiple languages and paired with micro-credential certification, helping small brands and creative professionals strengthen their digital readiness while protecting their artistic integrity. Read more about the project in the dedicated newsletter here (access the Italian newsletter).

The moment you have been waiting for has arrived: we are ready to launch the open call for Italian-speaking ARTISTS and CURATORS under 36 for TEXTILE ART FACTORY!

If you are a contemporary artist, if you adore contemporary textile art, if you want to take part in a 6-month training residency in the heart of the textile district: with formal and non-formal training, practical and theoretical lessons, studio and factory visits, workshops, talks, one-on-one mentoring, and the preparation of a final exhibition and catalogue this is your once-in-a-lifetime chance.

All residents will be hosted in our shared apartment, will have a working space in our studio, and will have full access to our textile lab. Each participant will receive a monthly stipend of 500 euros.

If you are: an artist or a curator (or aspiring curator); under 36; Italian-speaking (minimum level B1 to understand the lessons); not in formal education; and not employed full-time. DO NOT miss this opportunity!

The call for curators is open until the 18th of November 2025, and the selected curator will be chosen just in time to participate in the selection of the participating artists.
The call for artists is open until the 31st of December 2025.
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.

For Clara: Shortcut on an extended plane (SOCKS), 2025, dye sublimation print on synthetic fabric. Printed at Institute for Electronic Arts, Alfred University while an Artist-in-Residence.

Jennifer Schmidt is a multi-disciplinary artist living in Brooklyn, NY, who works with print media, graphic design, textiles, writing, and sound to create site-responsive installations, video, and performances that question the role of visual iconography and repetitive actions within a given environment.

During her 3-week residency at Lottozero, Schmidt is experimenting with digital embroidery and reactive dye screenprinting on found woven textile samples produced in Italy. Responding to their existing patterns, color variations, and accidental dye marks, she layers new imagery and adjusts her digital files through machine drawing and printing processes. This work is part of her ongoing research project For Clara: Shortcut on an Extended Plane, which reflects on her identity as a woman artist working across graphics and textiles, while tracing a conceptual connection to Clara Posnanski — an early 20th-century designer and printer associated with the Wiener Werkstätte whose life and work remain largely undocumented.

Jennifer Schmidt received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Delaware.
She is Professor of the Practice in Print at SMFA at Tufts University in Boston, MA.

We are excited to announce the third exhibition of our Soft Sculpture biennial program, with a solo show by Barbara Prenka, a Kosovo-born artist active between Bolzano and Berlin.

What Lies Behind the Boundaries of a Shadow extends her ongoing reflection on the blanket—an object that inhabits our daily lives and, in moments of crisis or social fragility, embodies care and shelter.
By recreating it from scratch—padding and hand-sewing shiny fabrics printed with abstract patterns—the artist turns the blanket into a terrain of imagination and material experiment. This artificial, abstract landscape unfolds as a tridimensional surface, where word and matter intertwine through embroidered texts.

Developed during her residency at Lottozero, the new series brings language into the work as a physical presence, inscribed in the fabric. The narrative, never linear nor fixed, settles within folds and reliefs, evoking inner images and subjective associations.
Emerging from a practice on the threshold between painting and sculpture, the blanket here shifts toward a sculptural dimension: the fold and the inertia of the padded fabric define new relations with space, architecture, and the identity of the site.
The exhibition takes form as a site-specific installation, activated by a sound composition by Alessandra Novaga, in which the blankets turn emptiness into a tangible presence. In this continuum, sound and silence, image and word merge until they coincide.

This project is the third chapter in Lottozero’s biennial program dedicated to Soft Sculpture, exploring the expressive and conceptual potential of soft and flexible materials within contemporary art.
The exhibition is co-funded by Toscanaincontemporanea 2025 and by the Province of South Tyrol - Department of Culture.

Opening: November 20, h 18.30
From 21.11.2025 to 15.02.2026
Mon-Fri 10.00-18.00; Sat and Sun by appointment
info@lottozero.org / Tel 0574 22883

In celebration of Female Entrepreneurship Day on November 19, join us online for a special event with Tessa and Arianna Moroder, founders of Lottozero.

Discover the story of how Lottozero began and learn how female entrepreneurship is shaping a more sustainable textile future. This interactive session is your chance to meet the founders, ask questions, and gain insights into building a creative and resilient business.

You’ll also get an exclusive first look at the W4TEX Project an Erasmus+ initiative empowering women to strengthen their management and leadership competencies through the Be a Manager online course and Women Think Green toolkit — resources designed to help women grow as confident, capable leaders.

November 19 | Online Event
Register here!

Born in Slovenia and now based in Glasgow, Anita Sarkezi is an artist and weaver of Slovene, Croatian, Hungarian, and Romani descent. She studied Fine Arts at KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent and Textile Design (Weave) at the Glasgow School of Art, where she is currently Artist in Residence (2023–2025).

Rooted in her own experience as a migrant artist in a post-Brexit era, Anita’s practice explores ideas of movement, belonging, and cultural hybridity. Working between weaving and graphic experimentation, she investigates the translation between digital and analogue processes and the political and symbolic dimensions of ornament, deconstructing traditional motifs, meanings, and decorative functions to create a new visual language.

During her residency, she continues to develop her series On The Fringes, a body of woven works on the TC2 digital jacquard loom that reimagine historical maps of her native Slovenia—situated at the crossroads of Austria, Croatia, and Hungary. Through these tactile compositions, Anita reflects on the fluidity of borders and proposes a more inclusive way of envisioning territory and identity.

Anita Sarkezi’s residency is supported by The Textile Society.

Anita Sarkezi, Invasion No.2, from the series The Fringes, 2025, Jacquard woven tapestry, 58 x 63 cm.

Lottozero is pleased to share the latest developments from W4TEX – Women for Textile, the Erasmus+ initiative dedicated to advancing women’s leadership, sustainability competencies, and managerial capacity within the textile and fashion sectors.

In recent months, the consortium has made major progress on two core project outputs. The Women Think Green Toolset —a comprehensive training package designed to build green and problem-solving skills among women working in textile companies and among adult educators, is now online. The toolset includes clear factsheets on environmental impacts across the textile value chain, 18 case studies from women-led sustainable enterprises, and a collection of practical training scenarios that apply green managerial thinking to real-world challenges. Read more about it in this dedicated newsletter (access the Italian version).

At the same time, the “Be A Manager” e-learning platform has been released, offering 12 structured modules on leadership, crisis management, teamwork, and other managerial skills tailored to the textile sector. The platform features self-assessment tools, editable resources for educators, and multilingual access, concluding with a certificate of completion. Piloting sessions across partner countries have helped refine the platform ahead of wider dissemination. Read more about it in this dedicated newsletter (access the Italian version).

Looking ahead, W4TEX is preparing a series of National Ideathons taking place in autumn 2025—creative innovation challenges designed to bring together women in textiles, sustainability practitioners, and entrepreneurs to co-develop ideas for a greener and more inclusive sector. These national events will culminate in a Final International Ideathon in Greece in early 2026.

As part of the Italian activities, Lottozero will host a special Female Entrepreneur Mixer on December 1st. This gathering will celebrate women leading the future of sustainable fashion and textiles, featuring guest talks by:

• Giuliana Borzillo – Co-founder of ID.EIGHT

• Gaia Segattini – Founder of Gaia Segattini Knotwear

• Pamela Burani – Founder of Nonplussed

The event will create a space for networking, exchange, and inspiration among emerging designers, makers, and women entrepreneurs in Tuscany and beyond.
 For more information and to sign up, please visit our Eventbrite page.

Explore all W4TEX updates and tools on the project website.

Our project dedicated to digital technology innovations in the textile sector, TEX4.0 – Enabling Industry 4.0 Skills in Textile SMEs, has officially wrapped up, and all final resources are now available online for free for anyone who wants to dive into the future of textiles. Read the full press release here (Italian version).

One of the core outcomes is the TEX4.0 Curriculum and Report, which gives an overview of the digital skills today’s textile professionals need—from understanding new technologies to adapting traditional craftsmanship to an Industry 4.0 world. You can download the full report and explore the research behind the training materials here (download the Italian version).

The heart of the project is the TEX4.0 Training Suite, a user-friendly learning environment that includes:

• 12 e-learning modules on topics like robotics, AI, smart textiles, digital product passports, IoT, and the future of supply chains.

• A Trainer’s Corner packed with lesson plans, quizzes, and ready-to-use teaching materials.

• 18 real-life case studies, including several enhanced with augmented reality to show how European textile companies are already using Industry 4.0 tools in their work.

Everything is available online, and learners can earn a certificate by completing the course (sign up for the training course here).

Now that all results are public, TEX4.0 offers a practical, engaging way for textile professionals, trainers, and curious learners to build their digital skills and rethink the future of the sector—at their own pace, and completely for free.

Explore the full set of tools and materials on the project website.

Shanzhai Lyric, “Incomplete Poem (hedge)”, for the group show “The Weight of Words”, Henry Moore Foundation, UK, 2023

Shanzhai Lyric is a poetic inquiry and archive run by artists Ming Lin and Alex Tatarsky, focusing on radical logistics and linguistics through the prism of technological aberration and nonofficial cultures.

The project takes inspiration from the experimental English of shanzhai t-shirts made in China and proliferating across the globe to examine how the language of counterfeit uses mimicry, hybridity, and permutation to both revel in and reveal the artifice of global hierarchies. Through an ever-growing archive of poetry-garments, Shanzhai Lyric explores the potential of mis-translation and nonsense as utopian world-making (breaking) and has previously taken the form of poetry-lecture, essay, and installation.

During their week-long residency at Lottozero, Ming Lin and Alex Tatarsky explored the local concept of “rossino,” connecting it to their ongoing research on rag recycling and regeneration across Prato, New York, and the English tradition of “shoddy.”

We’re thrilled to announce that Lottozero is once again hosting a young entrepreneur through the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Programme!

Lottozero,  continues its commitment to supporting new creative talent in textiles, fashion, and design.

This year, we’ve decided to take a more focused approach. In order for the Erasmus programme to be truly successful, we believe it’s essential to be clear about what kind of experience we can offer and what kind of entrepreneur can make the most of it. That’s why we’ve created a specific profile for the candidate we’d love to host: someone hands-on, curious, and deeply passionate about textiles, materials, and design processes, who’s ready to learn the entrepreneurial side of running a creative lab.

The selected participant will work closely with our Lab Manager inside the Lottozero Textile Lab, engaging daily with machinery, materials, and production workflows, while gaining first-hand insight into creative research, collaboration, and studio management.

Please note: this opportunity is open to participants who are eligible for the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme. Please check eligibility here: erasmus-entrepreneurs.eu/page.php?cid=2

If this sounds like you, please fill out this Google Form.

 This form is designed to help us get to know you better — your background, motivation, and interest in joining Lottozero. The information you share will help us understand whether your profile aligns with the kind of experience we can offer in our textile laboratory and creative community. Please note that the form can be submitted until the 22nd of November.

Please note that the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs funding and eligibility process is handled separately by the program’s national contact points in each country. Each applicant should check their own eligibility and apply for funding through their local organization.