Ana Lupas has been reinvigorating textiles and fibre art since the 1960s through ‘actions’, participatory community projects, sculpture, installation, and drawing. Following her studies at the Institute of Fine Arts in Cluj, Lupas experimented with textiles, moving away from wall drapings to inhabit bodies and spaces and connect them to social imaginaries often rooted in ancestral traditions. In 1964, Lupas initiated the collective project The Solemn Process, which she would pursue for five decades in farmer communities in Transylvania to recover the practice of wreath making from ears of wheat to celebrate the abundance of a harvest—a communal ritual that had almost died out under the homogenizing process of modernization. Identity Shirt (1969), from the long-running series of the same name, ‘records’ both the inner self and outer self in a single registration. Identity Shirt 1, 2, and 3 are either stitched with a sewing machine or by hand; other pieces include Seraph Shirt, Cherub Shirt, Tiny Shirts. The works in Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests refer to the motif of flight, functioning as an imaginary medium to travel beyond political restrictions and border control. The selection includes a photographic reproduction of a piece from the series The Flying Machine (1969–71) and seven Kites from 1962–63 which are a precursor to the Flying Machine series and demonstrate her early avant garde thinking in working with textiles.

Works in the exhibition: Kites 7 (1962–63), series of 7 works consisting of wool, cotton, hemp, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist, supported by Fundatia Plan B; Flying Machine in a Day of Holiday (1970), reproduction of the cover page of the magazine Arta (1971, vol. 8). Courtesy of the artist and Revista Arta