Threads of Kinship — KADIST — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In 5 days: Saturday, October 11, 2025

Oct 11 2025 — Jan 10 2026

Organized by KADIST in collaboration with He Art Museum (Shunde, China), Threads of Kinship departs from the radical legacy of the Self-Comb Sisters, women in early 20th-century South China who rejected marriage and formed independent communities, sustaining themselves through silk production. In this quiet yet powerful act of refusal, they redefined womanhood as a commitment to autonomy and chosen kinship.

This is the first iteration of an exhibition that will be presented at He Art Museum in Spring 2026.

Hu Yinping, Potatoes Grow on Trees, 2025 Commissioned by UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, courtesy of the artist and Magician Space

Curators Shona Mei Findlay, Yuan Fuca, Marie Martraire (KADIST) in conversation with He Art Museum curatorial team

Artists Mercedes Azpilicueta, Chen Jialu & Self-Comb Sisters, Gaëlle Choisne, Xyza Cruz Bacani, Hu Yinping, Tarik Kiswanson, Ma Qiusha, Ashmina Ranjit, Risham Syed, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe et Yee I-Lann.

Wyza Cruz Bacani, Three Generations, 2018, from the series We Are Like Air, 2013-2018 Courtesy de l’artiste © DR

Centering non-Western narratives, the exhibition foregrounds often-overlooked narratives of labor, care, and resistance, as well as the speculative possibilities that emerge from them. Textiles become vessels for these stories of identity, trauma, community, and history, while also serving as tools of survival and solidarity, binding together what might otherwise unravel.

Featuring a dozen contemporary artworks at KADIST Paris, Threads of Kinship considers how kinship is not only inherited but made, and how the softest threads can hold the strongest forms of resistance.