Silk is one of the most vibrant materials. Woven into a fixed object, it continues to behave — changing tone and brightness as light moves across it during the day, responding to the viewer’s angle in ways few other fabrics can. This quality of perpetual, quiet change is at the center SILK, by Ana Kraš individual exposure to Emma Scully Gallerywhich opened on May 7, 2026 and remains on view until June 13, 2026.
The exhibition takes its name from the Serbian word for silk and gathers SVILA side tables, Glass Coffee Tablesand Panel Lamps— each produced in two color variations. The collection is not about silk as a decoration, but as a bearing material concept: something with structural and visual properties worth exploring in different functional and sculptural typologies of objects. Known for an intuitive and tactile approach to design, Kraš examines how silk behaves in relation to wood, glass and metal, allowing the material to shift from fabric to atmosphere, surface, structure and light.
In panel lamps, woven silk diffuses light through its irregular weave structure, making its texture visible as a light field rather than a surface. In the glass coffee tables, a reflective top layer frames the silk underneath, compressing depth while introducing gloss and shadow. The Side Tables expose the material more directly, without mediation, emphasizing its raw and tactile qualities. In all three, the same material reads differently — soft, shiny, tactile, volatile — depending on its surroundings.
The hand-carved wooden components throughout the collection were made using a traditional Balkan technique, executed in collaboration with artisans in Bosnia who continue to practice a UNESCO-protected method. Carving lines the edges of both styles of tables, extending the exhibition’s interest in material behavior to another register of craftsmanship. Kraš has long drawn to the line as a formal device: the 2008 Bonbon lamp, which launched its international profile at the Salone del Mobile while she was still a student of interior architecture and furniture design at the University of Applied Arts in Belgrade, was made from repeating threads of yarn in a volumetric form. This line continues in her wider practice, from delicate line drawings and large-scale oil works to the extruded lines of her Mara furniture.
Kraš developed this body of work in the weeks following the birth of her child, drawing on the psychological state of that period—the sense of enclosure, softness, and calm transformation—as a conceptual starting point. “In those early days, I felt like I was floating in a quiet, protective space—much like being in a cocoon—and I wanted to work from that feeling of softness, closeness, and transformation,” she says. This led her back to the origin of silk: the cocoon, a structure both protective and temporary, built for emergence. Silk is inherently about transformation. It starts as a secretion, becomes a fiber and is woven into fabric.
During this time, she spoke exclusively in Serbian to her newborn, which prompted her to incorporate her cultural heritage more directly into the work. The Bosnian collaboration is the result: a decision that roots the collection in a specific craft geography rather than allowing it to float in the generalized language of craft production. UNESCO’s recognition of traditional Balkan woodcarving techniques recognizes a practice under real pressure from industrialization. Incorporating it into functional items sold through a gallery gives it both visibility and continued use.
This cultural specificity has particular resonance in Kraš’s wider career, which has moved across cities, disciplines and scales. Her practice spans furniture and interiors, photography, fine art, scenography, fashion, textiles, ceramics and creative direction, yet remains recognizable through a spontaneous sensibility, simple forms and an unexpected approach to colour. With SVILA, these instincts are distilled into a collection that feels both deeply personal and materially precise. Silk becomes less a decoration than a way of thinking about time, care, heritage and change.
To know more about the designer and maker, visit emmascullygallery.com.
Photo by Joe Crum.
