Exploring Healing And Memory Through Wool: 'Shroud Is a Cloth' By Adrian Pepe

by Alexandra Mansilla

Exploring Healing And Memory Through Wool: 'Shroud Is a Cloth' By Adrian Pepe

29 Jan 2025

Last summer, Adrian Pepe unveiled "Entangled Matters 2.0", an exhibition that left a lasting impression. He took Villa des Palmes, part of the Sursock Palace Domain — one of the many buildings damaged by the Beirut port explosion — and wrapped it entirely in felted wool. The idea came to him after noticing how destroyed buildings in his neighbourhood were covered in scaffolding draped with green and blue fabrics, sometimes even rough jute. In his eyes, these coverings looked like bandages, temporary dressings for a wounded city. Over time, he watched as the textiles sagged and draped down like scabs forming and peeling away.

He started collecting these materials and weaving them into his wool-based work, drawing a striking parallel between how cities and bodies heal.

Now, this massive 200-square-metre woollen textile is coming to NIKA Project Space in Dubai as the centrepiece of Shroud is a Cloth, running from January 30 to May 17, 2025.

At the exhibition, you will see how Adrian explores memory, healing, and the fine line between destruction and renewal. And, of course, how he works his magic with wool — turning it into intricate, almost living compositions that give even the smallest fibre a story to tell. In Adrian’s hands, textiles are no longer just materials; they are witnesses to history, woven with the weight of memory and the hope of renewal.

To learn more about it, let us hear from Adrian himself.

— The name of the show is "A Shroud is a Cloth". Could you explain the idea behind this title and the meaning you have embedded in it?

— The title "A Shroud Is a Cloth" reflects the dual role of a shroud as both a physical covering and a conceptual vessel; a shroud protects yet conceals. For me, the shroud is a witness of transition — between life and death, presence and absence, visibility and invisibility. By referencing a cloth, the title draws attention to the materiality of textiles and their deep connection to the human body, to ritual, and to the landscapes they come from.

— At the heart of the exhibition is a 200-square-metre woollen textile that once wrapped a damaged heritage building in the centre of Beirut. Could you share the core concept of this piece? What does it represent or hold at its essence?

— The core concept of this hand-made building cover lies in its role as a gesture of care and repair. By wrapping a damaged heritage building in Beirut, the work underscores the fragility of architectural structures, mirroring the vulnerability of human bodies and the labour required to sustain and preserve both. The piece intertwines the material histories of the wool and the city, creating a tactile dialogue between place and memory.

Adrian Pepe. Entangled Matters. Exhibition View. Beirut. 2024. Courtesy of the artist

— Perhaps you have also observed the reactions of different viewers to this work. What were some of those responses?

— Viewers have responded to this work in varied ways. Some are struck by its sheer scale, reflecting on the labour involved in its creation. Others passed it by without noticing as it camouflaged into the ongoing processes of restoration. In Beirut, many saw it as an homage to the city, while in a gallery context, it prompts reflections on displacement and the traces that textiles carry.

Adrian Pepe. A Shroud as a Cloth. Exhibition View. 2025. NIKA Project Space Dubai. Courtesy of NIKA Project Space

— The woollen textile originally wrapped a heritage building, literally absorbing everything that happened in that space. How do you think its meaning or energy has changed now that it has been transported to a completely different environment?

— In its new environment, the textile takes on the role of an artefact, encouraging reflections on the migration of objects and the ways their meanings evolve when removed from their original contexts.

Adrian Pepe. A Shroud as a Cloth. Exhibition View. 2025. NIKA Project Space. Dubai. Courtesy of NIKA Project Space

— Could you also tell me about the other works that will be featured in the exhibition? How do these pieces explore the ideas of fragmentation, repair, and the traces left by personal and collective histories? Are there any particular works you would like to highlight for viewers to pay close attention to?

— One notable work is the series of ex-votos created from the debris collected during the wool-cleaning process. In many ways, these works emerged from the landscape embedded within the wool itself. These small, moulded forms — crafted using earth, collagen (animal glue), and clinical casting materials — take the shape of fragmented body parts, both human and sheep. They reflect on healing as both an individual and collective act, bridging human and other-than-human connections.

This work is also deeply personal, drawing on childhood memories of pilgrimages with my mother to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels in Cartago, Costa Rica. I was particularly struck by the Chamber of Miracles (Sala de los Milagros), a room filled with medallions and ex-votos shaped like body parts, offered in gratitude or supplication for healing. This imagery left a profound impression, connecting the human desire for repair and restoration to physical representations of faith. Additionally, it recalls afternoons spent at my father’s orthopaedic clinic, surrounded by casting materials and anatomical models, where healing was approached with precision and practicality. By weaving together the rational act of medical intervention and the devotional offering of ex-votos, the work examines healing as a multifaceted practice that bridges the physical and the spiritual. It highlights how acts of care, whether rooted in faith or science, share a common intent to repair and restore, challenging the perceived boundaries between reason and belief.

Adrian Pepe. Shedding. 2023. Courtesy of the artist

— Finally, is there a specific piece from A Shroud is a Cloth that holds a particularly special meaning for you?

— "Shedding" holds a particularly special meaning for me. This work emerged from a durational performance in which wool was wet-felted directly onto my body, creating a life-sized cast that was later shed like a second skin. The process was physically and emotionally demanding, requiring a surrender to vulnerability as the material gradually enveloped and then released me. As the wool enveloped my body, it symbolised a process of becoming — of hybridisation, where human and other-than-human histories and materials intermingled.

What makes "Shedding" especially significant is how it examines healing as a collaborative act — between body and material, human and animal. This work speaks to the porous boundaries between species and identities, embodying the idea of healing not as a fixed state but as an ongoing, interdependent process of becoming.

by Alexandra Mansilla