Benjamin Mengistu Navet
Off the Grid
Periode: 01.06—17.09.2023
Benjamin Mengistu Navet (°1994,) was born in Addis-Abeba, Ethiopia and grew up in France. Navet arrived in Belgium to study Fashion Design at La Cambre (Brussels) and Textile Design at KASK School of Arts (Ghent). Navigating between different approaches of textiles and fashion, he passed by Margiela’s knitwear studio in Paris, and was later selected for the TaDA residency in Switzerland, where he was working closely with textiles industries in order to develop new projects. Afterwards, he returned to Belgium to work on several projects between Brussels and Flanders as well as exhibitions with Komplot, The Constant Now, and Ballon Rouge Gallery (invited by Please Add Color) . He has collaborated with choreographer Stanley Ollivier and most recently with Swiss artist Axelle Stiefel for vorstellen.network on a specific project for the Sculpture Garden Biennale Geneva.
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Benjamin Mengistu Navet
The main focus of the weavings and practice of Benjamin Mengistu Navet is the creation of a dialogue between industry and craftsmanship, in order to question the production process of objects. Based on Navet’s research in post-colonial practices in the field of fashion and textiles, he currently investigates his own Ethiopian background through pattern-making by combining traditional with industrial techniques. He approaches his practice as a laboratory where textile and garments enter in a dialogue or confrontation with other media and images. Whether it is handwoven, or industrially printed, straight from the industrial weaving machine, or revealed by hand dyes, whether it’s for a scenography that reveals the colonial trajectory of a fabric, the Ahmaric alphabet, crossing personal trajectories from diasporas with textile techniques, these embodied narratives are at the center of his research-based practice.