A weekend dedicated to knitting: the LOOP! knitting festival at the Esche Museum in Limbach-Oberfrohna was all about knitting, sustainable textiles and creative technologies. The opening event on Friday evening was all about light, art and music. Artist Wiete Sommer opened the festival with her performance Spiegelung. Spectral-coloured body images. Light and sound installations transformed the museum into an atmospheric experience until late in the evening.
On Saturday, the museum presented itself as an open house with mini-workshops, pop-up workshops, hands-on activities and readings. In the Esche Lab, the museum's maker hub and new textile workshop, designers and textile experts offered one-hour workshops throughout the day. The digital knitting machine Kniterate was running in the exhibition, where visitors could produce small festival souvenirs. The exhibition was complemented by the DIY format Sock Debate with Aïcha Abbadi, in which socks were made from production leftovers. In front of the museum building, the wind-powered knitting machine The wind knitting factory by Dutch artist Merel Karhof was at work. Guided tours, a clothes swap and a textile book reading format rounded off the programme. In the evening, a knitting get-together with DJs from the Reiz-Kollektiv invited visitors to knit together to a soundtrack. Saxony's Minister of State for Culture and Tourism, Barbara Klepsch, also visited the knitting festival.
The last day of the festival, Sunday, was dedicated to consolidating what had been learnt previously: In two-and-a-half-hour workshops, participants were able to learn new techniques under the guidance of expert instructors. At the same time, there were lectures on sustainability, local textile production and sustainable design. Further demonstrations, guided tours of the museum and the presentation of the historic knitting machine Strickfee from the GDR era took place in the museum. The knitting festival attracted a total of 700 visitors.
The LOOP! knitting festival is part of the Capital of Culture programme and is supported by the Chemnitz 2025 main project Makers, Business & Artswhich builds bridges between creative makers, art, business and tourism.