Bernat Klein Fellowships 2025
Textile Designer-Artist Mariam Syed working at her loom in Scotland. Image courtesy of Mariam Syed 2025.
Textile Designer-Artist Moira Nilsson in her studio exhibition in Sweden. Image courtesy of Elise Weston
A new programme for international collaboration in 2025
ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
This new programme was developed by Cove Park in collaboration with the Bernat Klein Foundation and Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts, and Design, Stockholm. The Bernat Klein Fellowships are generously supported by the William Grant Foundation and The Embassy of Sweden in London. In 2025, two Bernat Klein Fellowships have been awarded to established textile designers / textile artists based in Scotland and Sweden. The Fellowships are fully funded and include residencies, the opportunity for supported research including access to the national Bernat Klein archive collections in Scotland, and the support required for the development of new work.
SCOTTISH ARTIST - MARIAM SYED
Mariam Syed is a textile designer, weaver and digital/craft researcher committed to developing an advanced practice that combines craft with digital. Mariam’s tacit knowledge and craft experience in both Pakistan and Scotland empowers her to take charge of the ever advancing technologies to research and reinterpret traditional techniques and weave structures. She designs and weaves fabrics for fashion accessories and interior spaces on a computerised Dobby Loom in her Glasgow studio.
Mariam’s design practice encapsulates her passion for vibrant colour, geometry and architecture. Discovering weaving through her love for mathematics, her geometric designs are infused with the brilliantly bright palette of Pakistani Truck Art. Viewing her design practice as an art of storytelling through textiles, Mariam exports the stories and cultural values of her rich heritage and translates it into contemporary woven fabrics.
Recent exhibitions include: Collect, Somerset House, London 2023; Talaash, Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven 2022; The Hamper and Scent of Summer at Fortnum & Mason, London 2022; The original sustainable department at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester 2019. Mariam is a QEST scholar, and was awarded the best newcomer to the Weaving Industry by the Incorporation of Weavers of Glasgow in 2020.
SWEDISH ARTIST - MOIRA NILSSON
Moira Nilsson is a textile artist based in Sweden. She explores the details and fibers, the structures and surfaces to find both the tension and the merge between different techniques and materials, such as wool, linen, weave and felt. She goes against or mixes the taught ways of how to use the materials and techniques to find their hidden possibilities. Nilsson often creates tri-dimensional shapes in textile. Something she experiments with by working with multiple layers and material qualities like stability and density.
An often appearing narrative is the human perception of nature and our surroundings. She pays attention to what hides in the peripheral of our surroundings, a window reflection for example. Searching to express and capture what is difficult to grasp, the transparent, moving, temporary or fragile. In the spring of 2023 she finished her Fine Art Bachelors degree in Textile-Body-Space at HDK-Valand- Academy of Art and Design. She has been part of several exhibitions and exchanges in Stockholm, Malmö, Tokyo and Tartu.
ABOUT COVE PARK
Cove Park is an international residency based on an outstanding 50-acre rural site in Argyll on Scotland’s west coast. We host local, national, and international artists and creative practitioners working in all art forms and at every career stage. Cove Park provides the facilities, support, and care required for the development of new ideas and projects, collaborations, and interdisciplinary practice. Residents stay on site in private accommodation with access to private studios, communal work and meeting spaces, and a library. We host up to 12 residents at any one time, offering every resident the opportunity meet and work alongside individuals and collaborative groups from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. We organise informal peer-to-peer events to promote discussion, the exchange of ideas and experiences, and the development of new connections.
ABOUT KONSTFACK UNIVERSITY OF ARTS, CRAFTS & DESIGN
Based in the Swedish capital Stockholm, Konstfack is Sweden’s largest university for arts, crafts, and design. The Master’s programme CRAFT! with a specialisation in textiles sees crafts as a tool for developing artistic design, generating new knowledge, and commenting on our time. The programme promotes the development of critical textile knowledge.