Nordic Award in Textiles to Silja Puranen

The biggest textile prize in the Nordic countries, The Nordic Award in Textiles of 250 000 Swedish crowns, was awarded to Finnish textile artist Silja Puranen for her distinctive way of perceiving human vulnerability and inadequacy. Silja Puranen, 47 years, operates within the borderlands of textile and visual art. The award includes an exhibition in the Textile Museum of Borås opening in October this year.

Statement of the jury:

Through her power of observation in daily life situations, Silja Puranen asks crucial and unanswerable questions in her works. She processes her carefully chosen textile materials in combinations of old and new expressions and techniques which gives a distinctive „Puranenish“ intimacy and unquestionable might to her artistic voice. Her artistry is affiliated with a human warmth that reaches out to us as we ponder over Life and death – why and where to?

website: http://www.stiftelsenfokus.nu/