Morta Jonynaité is a textile artist from Vilnius who will exhibit her beautiful, fragile textiles exhibition ‘Never Drying Towels’ in St. Columb’s Hall, a former, popular entertainment venue for the hundreds of Derry’s Factory Girls.

‘Never Drying Towels’ is a series of hand-woven towels inspired by Lithuanian folk traditions. In the past, towels on hand-carved towel racks were representative of the family – the piece of fabric, which came with the bride’s dowry, was like an altar piece, reflecting the sacred nature of marriage. Nowadays, it would be farfetched to relate a towel drying on a ladder heater to anything other than its primary function, i.e. the constant cycle of wiping and drying. The notion of the family is also changing: it is no longer a silent, finite fabric but a constantly evolving, fluid organism.

This exhibition forms part of The Sixteen Nations, which celebrates female creativity, and the YESHub at St. Columb’s Hall will be open from 10am – 6pm daily.

YES takes place in Derry~Londonderry and north Donegal from 13-16 June. It is the culmination of ULYSSES European Odyssey, an unprecedented international project supported with funding through Creative Europe that since 2022 has seen partners in 18 cities across Europe take Joyce’s novel as the starting point to explore contemporary issues, from migration to the environment and disability to global data.

Women artists from cities involved in ULYSSES European Odyssey will travel to Ireland for YES to present work in venues and public spaces across Derry~Donegal. The programme will include theatre, dance, visual arts, installations, film, writing, photography, textiles, circus, music, rap and song.

At a time when more is being written about both Joyce’s wife Nora Barnacle and Molly Bloom, YES and its theme The Future: A Female Vision invite audiences to think about the role of women in the writer’s life and work, and more widely, in society, in art, in business, in politics, as thinkers, as creatives, as leaders.