Workshop with Ziliä Qansuará – Collective Felting

Join this hands-on workshop with the artist Ziliä Qansuará exploring the meditative and communal process of felting. The workshop is accompanied by a talk by the artist. Using hot water, soap, and shared labour, participants will bind fibres into dense forms that echo bodily structures and landscapes of memory. Rooted in Bashqort craft traditions, the workshop reflects on themes of identity, migration, and exile, while embracing resilience, transformation, and belonging. No experience is required—just curiosity and a willingness to create something collective from fragments, gestures, and stories.

Ziliä Qansuará is a multidisciplinary artist from Bashkortostan, today living in exile in Vienna, Austria.

This event will take place in Room 103, Lowry Building at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Image credit: Ziliä Qunsará, Soft Series, 2023 shown at NGBK, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin in 2023. Courtesy of the artist.