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XTANT NOMAD 2026

Photo from Aurore Pelisson.

 

Opening | 10.05.26

The Palace gates open!

After what was easily the single busiest opening night party in XTANT’s history, the event floor is cleaned, glasses are cleared up, and NOMAD 2026 is ready to open to the public.

A total 89 artists (Though counted as 87 in our map due to a lack of certain bios) from 37 different countries have gathered in Palma and been carefully arranged throughout the many rooms and patios of the ancient palace of Can Vivot.

Ten unique workshops, held in different locales all across the historic streets of central Palma, a talks, conversations, and film showing series; and two special exhibitions held at the Castell de Bellver which were held for the opening on the 9th.

Event floor in construction. May 7th.

 

The final rush for what remaining workshop slots there are is well underway and, as we start closing off reservations for those happening this morning and ready ourselves the best for the masses of people that arrive on the first day, they have already started setting up shop in the five different beautiful locations our friends and sponsors in the island have let us use.

This year everything from: Handcrafts, The knitting techniques of the Mapuche people in Chile, the tie-dye traditions of West India, waning practices of printing real silver patterns into fabric, the often overlooked skill of cordage and rope-making, the button and knot-making typical of traditional clothes in Northern China and the Buryatia in Siberia, and many more.

Cutting a wide selection of practices and traditions from across the world, this year’s workshop course is curated to bring together as many disciplines in the world of textiles. Hopefully giving to their participants a small window view of the effort and culture behind these typically overlooked processes.

Event floor in construction. May 7th.

Photo from Sabrina Stadlober taken by Jakob Kotzmuth

 

It didn’t really strike us that the event was already here until three hundred or so invitees entered the palace grounds for the private opening, and we started to be told of what each photographer wanted to focus on, with the expected dates after which we will be able to put together XTANT 2026’s ‘photo album’.

This year’s edition of XTANT has faced some serious headwinds, events on an international scale, a series of projects for several of our team members taking place for the months prior to the event. So it was a great relief when the opening night’s party proved to be the largest we’ve had.

The more time passes the more convinced we’ve become of the importance of keeping XTANT going: from the first serious signs of stress of our international supply chains, to the increasing automatisation of creative work in all industries, the nature of art generally is facing a similar dillema to the one which was posed to the fashion and textile industry.

The false dichotomy of ‘accepting the future and letting go of the past' or to ‘stubbornly keep the past frozen and alive'.

Throughout our work and in many previous newsletters we’ve expressed what we see in the future for artisan and heritage textiles. How we can integrate them into modern contexts or use their old techniques to form a modern ‘industry’.

But words can only get so far in describing that future. A clearer window into what we mean can be found here: In the wide spectrum of aesthetics, cultures, techniques and disciplines carefully woven across the palace halls of Can Vivot.

So, in lieu of that photo album (which we will post after the event), whether you’re visiting from the furthest corners of the world or you’re a Palma resident who had a free afternoon this Saturday, we hope you can understand, even if only a little bit, why we put so much of ourselves into XTANT.

Drop by! It’s our best work yet.

Photo by @engelengele

 

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