Groninger Museum presents Joana Schneider – Otherworldly

A enchanting journey to a place where reality meets fantasy

With the new exhibition Otherworldly, the Groninger Museum invites visitors into a realm where the line between reality and fantasy blurs. Joana Schneider’s unique textile sculptures invite us to reflect on the continual transformation at play in our world. Schneider brings together traditional crafts and engages in dialogue with themes such as change, identity and beauty. Joana Schneider – Otherworldly opens on Saturday 12 April at the Groninger Museum.

Otherworldly invites visitors to consider the transformative power of nature and the infinite possibilities of the human imagination. The everyday and the fantastical intertwine in an installation that invites us on a journey beyond the ordinary, to the borderland between the known and the unknown.

Inspiration
The artist Joana Schneider (b. 1990, Munich) finds inspiration in Greek mythology, where characters are often transformed by power, love and revenge to become complex, multilayered figures. She also draws on the late Renaissance tradition of grotesque art, which blends human, animal and plant forms in intricate, sometimes surreal ways. Her sculptures investigate the role played by beauty ideals, the human longing for change, and the ongoing quest for identity. Metamorphosis – which we see throughout nature and in human beings – is a central theme in the installation.

Working method
Schneider’s pioneering way of working combines innovative textile techniques and all-but-forgotten practices. She makes use of traditional crafts, such as embroidery, tapestry weaving and fishing knots, and works with recycled materials, including fishing ropes and yarns, which she dyes herself. Thanks to her trailblazing use of materials, Schneider has become known around the world as a key figure in the art world’s revived interest in textiles. Her installations interweave nature, fiction and human life to create an impressive sensory experience that invites us to look beyond the visible.

Museum purchase: Forever Young
The Groninger Museum bought Joana Schneider’s work Forever Young and four other sculptures from the same series in 2023. The wall hanging, made of recycled fishing ropes and PET yarn, depicts a caricaturish figure of a girl with rounded contours, pink hair and a three-dimensional dress. It references the iconic Polly Pocket dolls of the 1990s and investigates their influence on millennials and their desire to remain young. The works in the series, crafted layer by layer, also point to the aesthetic experience of living between the digital and offline worlds. Forever Young, a playful nod to the world of plastic surgery, goes on view in April at the Groninger Museum for the first time since its purchase. The colourful wall hanging will be exhibited alongside other works from the series.

Joana Schneider – Otherworldly will be on view at the Groninger Museum from 12 April to 31 August 2025.

Note to the editor, not for publication
For more information, please contact the Communication, PR and Marketing department:
pr@groningermuseum.nl / +31 (0)50 3666 510