STOFF / LACE RELATIONS - Premiere at Stadtkino
STOFF/LACE RELATIONS uncovers the hidden histories of a global trade that connected a small town in Austria to the bustling markets of Lagos, Nigeria.
Through the intertwined lives of an Austrian lace exporter and a Nigerian market queen, the film reveals how colonial legacies shaped a multi-million-dollar industry – enriching Europe while contributing to the collapse of West Africa’s indigenous textile economy. Combining on-location encounters and a powerful sociodramatic method, the film shifts the lens: Who tells the story? Who profits? Who remembers? Directed collectively by filmmakers from Austria and Nigeria, Lace Relations is not simply about textiles. It is about colonialism, memory, gendered resistance – and the patterns of power that continue to shape our world.
Being interwoven, entwined, even entangled is in the nature of textiles. The thread that Prof. Anette Baldauf (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) and Katharina Weingartner pick up in STOFF/LACE RELATIONS leads from the west of Austria to Nigeria, which has long been one of the Vorarlberg textile industry’s most lucrative markets. The research they conduct leads to the unravelling of unexpected connections between prosperity in the Alpine region and colonial power relations. In cooperation with Joana Adesuwa Reiterer and Chioma Onyenwe, a film was created from two perspectives, between Lagos and Lustenau; as it unfolds, this two-sided material is revealed as a vehicle of capitalism and dominance, of transformation and empowerment.
Anette Baldauf is professor for methodology and epistemology and co-director of the artistic research program PhD in Practice at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. At the New School University in New York, she was trained as a sociologist with a special emphasis on urban and cultural studies. Since then her focus has shifted to the many and often erased traces of colonialism in Europe. She has directed extensive artistic research projects that served as a meeting and study ground for artists from different geopolitical contexts. Her research interests revolve around questions on artistic research methodologies and ethics, particularly in transcultural research settings.
STOFF/LACE RELATIONS
Documentary, Austria 2025, 88 min.
Production Company
pooldoks Filmproduktion
Directed by
Anette Baldauf, Katharina Weingartner, Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, Chioma Onyenwe
Screenplay
Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, Anette Baldauf
Producers
Katharina Weingartner
FWF | PEEK-Project Fabricating Adjacency