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©Un savoir-faire labellisé patrimoine immatériel culturel UNESCO
Aubusson Tapestry

Aubusson Tapestry

The Aubusson tapestries are present throughout the world. In Creuse this know-how labeled UNESCO intangible heritage is revealed during exhibitions or cultural stays.

Tapestry, a living know-how

Beyond the works of art exhibited on the picture rails of the International Aubusson Tapestry City, it is the entire textile art industry that visitors can discover in Creuse from sheep to tapestry!

If the town of Aubusson has remained in the history books, Felletin its neighbor was also the linchpin of the fame of this ancestral art. It is here that you can visit the Terrade filature. In this still-operating business, raw wool that arrives in bales is worked into yarn and dyed in a traditional way. In Creuse, contemporary creation is encouraged in particular by the cité Internationale de la tapisserie d’Aubusson. In the form of a call for projects artists are invited to put their imagination at the service of the renewal of this ancestral art.

Tapestry: the jewel of Creuse’s heritage

This international competition marks a reconnection of Aubusson with the art market and contemporary creation galleries. These creations, woven in Creuse are exhibited around the world or in Creuse during events such as the exhibition at the castle church in Felletin.

The art of carpeting has profoundly marked the physiognomy of the towns in which the artists and craftsmen were based. This is, of course, the case of Aubusson; today’s visitor will get a nice glimpse of it in the Terrade district. After the bridge over the Creuse, a visit to the Musée des cartons de tapisserie is a must. In the city center the Maison du Tapissier perfectly illustrates six centuries of tapestry history. Accessible to all audiences, including children six years and older, the tour ends with a weaving demonstration.

Museums, exhibitions, workshops, spinning mills…

Aubusson tapestry is in fact a human chain of unique know-how. A chain that is brought to life today in Aubusson and Felletin by producers, spinners, dyers, workshops, factories, painters, cardboard makers, galleries and of course artists

To transmit and enhance this exceptional woven art, an ambitious project was needed, and it is that of the Cité internationale de la tapisserie: 1,200m2 of exhibition space to discover tapestries from around the world, from the oldest to the most contemporary, but also a weaving workshop, a business incubator, a tapestry restoration workshop from the Mobilier National… A must-see site to visit!

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“What always impresses me is the attitude of the students in architecture, art, design… during the seminars organized by the Cité: each time the same process, to the corny a priori they have of tapestry, succeeds an astonishment, even an infatuation for this medium of expression with multiple possibilities, inscribing itself in another relationship to time and in which one immerses oneself so willingly.”

Emmanuel Gérard, director of the Cité de la Tapisserie
Aubusson Tapestry

Let yourself be seduced

in pictures