This autumn, the Benaki Museum presents From Ink to Silk, an exhibition born from the encounter between visual artist Nikomachi Karakostanoglou and Art Rug Projects, the initiative of Electra Soutzoglou. Opening on October 9, 2025, and running through December 5, 2025, the exhibition will be staged in the atmospheric setting of the Mentis – Antonopoulos Passementerie (NΗ.M.A.), a historic workshop dedicated to silk weaving and dyeing traditions.
At its core, From Ink to Silk is a conversation—between image and texture, past and present, artistic gesture and the art of handweaving. Karakostanoglou, whose work often explores matter as a vessel of memory, energy, and sensation, brings her luminous, fluid visual language into dialogue with the centuries-old craft of weaving. Translated into silk, her brushstrokes take on new life: colors ripple like water, gradients shimmer with iridescence, and designs invite both touch and gaze. The rugs become living surfaces, shifting with light and perspective, transforming painting into a tactile, poetic experience.
The collaboration finds resonance in the history of the Soutzoglou family, whose legacy in weaving stretches back to early 20th-century Asia Minor. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Nikolaos Soutzoglou re-established his carpet business in Greece, later expanded by his son Kyriakos in the 1970s. Today, the third generation, embodied by Electra Soutzoglou, carries this heritage forward with Art Rug Projects. By inviting contemporary artists from Greece and abroad to translate their work into woven form, the initiative bridges traditional craftsmanship with the language of modern art. Each rug becomes both canvas and artifact—a handmade object that speaks to continuity and reinvention.
For Karakostanoglou, whose own family roots also trace back to Asia Minor, the project takes on an additional layer of intimacy. Known for her exploration of light and water as fundamental elements of perception, she has exhibited widely in Greece and internationally, with works in the collections of MOMus, the Benaki Museum, and the Onassis Foundation. In 2023, she was commissioned by the Onassis Stegi to create two outdoor sculptures, The Drop of Knowledge and The Flow.
The choice of venue is equally significant. Since 2012, the Mentis – Antonopoulos Passementerie (NΗ.M.A.) has functioned as both a museum annex and a working production site of the Benaki Museum. It preserves centuries-old knowledge of silk weaving and dyeing while continuing to produce ribbons, braids, tassels, and fringes using traditional methods. In this living workshop, the exhibition gains a charged atmosphere: history woven into every thread, contemporary art unfolding within walls that echo with memory.
From Ink to Silk is more than an exhibition—it is a weaving of heritage, art, and emotion. It brings together two women, two lineages, and two modes of creation, transforming them into a shared act of translation. The result is a reminder that weaving is not only a craft of threads, but also a craft of stories.
