Bio
Rosa Smits (NL, 1990) is intrigued by the social, tactile, and procedural nature of weaving. Driven by a fascination for societies that coexist harmoniously with each other and its environment, her work revolves around two profound questions: how to live and how to work together? Her creative approach sometimes extends beyond her individual vision, as she invites local inhabitants to participate in the artistic process, resulting in the birth of a new collective language. This exchange of gestures, knowledge, and ideas, fosters new tactile and social connections.
The influence of the environment reflects in Rosa’s choice of materials and her working process. The artist prefers to work with sustainable fibers or materials she encounters, dyeing her threads with dyes extracted from plants, food, herbs, and earth.
Characteristic of Rosa’s textiles is their roughness and purity: the structure of the fibers, threads, and materials used always remains visible. Often, her works are made site-specific and always result from collaborations: with others, with the environment and with the behaviour of the used material; thus, the process and chance are essential aspects of Rosa’s work.
Rosa obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Art & Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 2018. Her artwork has been exhibited in prominent places such as Rotterdam Art Week and various venues in Amsterdam, including The Cobra Museum and Stedelijk Museum. Her creative journey has also taken her to various places and rural communities within Europe and in Morocco, where she has shared her artistic and participative approach with diverse audiences.
Furthermore, Rosa actively engages in extensive research projects, exemplified by her participation in the European Union-funded initiative titled 'Weaving Voices as Threads of Communities' (2022-2024). This project underscores her commitment to exploring the transformative power of art within rural communities.
