Le fil voyageur, an exhibition of textile arts at the Musée du Quai Branly - our photos

Contemporary creations and textile history meet in an interesting dialogue at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac. The Parisian museum explores the art of textiles in South America and the modern legacy of these practices, in an exhibition presented from September 30, 2025 to March 8, 2026.

Entitled Le fil voyageur, this exhibition combines contemporary creations by Sheila Hicks and scientific work on textile art by researcher Monique Levi-Strauss. The two women have worked together for many years, united by their passion for textile art. This long-standing collaboration takes the form of a ground-breaking exhibition featuring some twenty textile pieces from Andean countries (Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia...), and some thirty contemporary creations that take up ancient techniques and weavings, for a blend of tradition and modernity.

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This exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly is an opportunity not only to discover ancestral knowledge from South America, but also to learn more about these cultures: textile arts are as useful as they are symbolic. These techniques, motifs, symbols and colors also cross borders, highlighting the cultural and commercial exchanges between peoples.

Through fabric, a whole history of civilizations is sketched out, thread by thread. By reviving these ancient arts, Sheila Hicks extends the history of textiles and keeps know-how alive. We admire her colorful, often surprising creations: Sheila Hicks wants the textile arts to stand out as a unique creative act, in which the thread is part of a whole, a complex whole that must be as beautiful as it is useful.

The Musée du Quai Branly offers us a fascinating blend of genres, in an exhibition that is more complex than it lets on. A must-see in Paris this fall.

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