INTERVIEW Lena Schnurrbusch
PUBLISHED 5 AUG 26
Hannah Köchy is a Textile Designer based in Bremen. She understands textiles not merely as a material, but as a medium for shaping transitions between reality, memory, imagination and physical experience.
// How would you describe your artistic practice?
My practice moves between textiles, objects, and spatial installation. I use textiles not only as a material but as a way of thinking about relationships, structure, and perception. I’m interested in creating situations that encourage a slower, more attentive way of experiencing space.
// What kind of relationship do you have with art?
For me, art is a way of exploring questions that don’t have fixed answers. It allows me to work with experiences that are difficult to describe through language and to create situations where different interpretations can exist at the same time.
// What motivates you to create?
I’m motivated by things that are often overlooked or silent—subtle shifts in light, atmosphere, or perception that can completely change how we experience a place. It helps me to understand these moments and translate them into something tangible.
// Which moment of the creative process do you enjoy the most?
I enjoy the stage where the work begins to develop its own logic. There’s a point where the materials, the space, and the installation start responding to one another, and the piece becomes more than the initial idea.
// How do you know when a work is finished?
I’m not sure I ever do. A work eventually reaches a point where I stop working on it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it feels complete. Especially on a conceptual level, I rarely experience a sense of closure. The questions often continue. Maybe every work is just one small fragment among many others.
// This year’s theme of SEE DJERBA, is Akros / Entanglement. What does entanglement mean to you?
For me, entanglement describes the way everything exists in relation to something else. I associate it with weaving, where individual threads only become a textile through their connection.
// How is your artwork connected to this year’s theme?
My installation explores atmosphere as something that emerges through relationships rather than existing as a fixed condition. The woven structure shifts with light, movement, and viewpoint, making every encounter slightly different. In that sense, the work reflects entanglement as a continuous interaction between material, space, and perception.
// What would you like people to take away after seeing your work?
I’d like people to feel encouraged to talk about how differently we perceive the same place or situation. Hopefully they leave with a heightened awareness of how sensitive perception is and how much our experience of the world depends on relationships that often remain unnoticed.
// What are you currently curious about?
At the moment, I’m curious about how different neurological and sensory conditions shape the way we experience the world, but also how memory works. I’m interested in how we remember, how we try to hold on to fleeting moments, and how we create both mental and physical forms of archive. I keep wondering what remains, what changes over time, and what inevitably slips away.