Hansen | הנסן

Once upon a time, there was an orphan girl named Kroshka-Khavroshechka. A woman took her in, only to soon turn her into a servant for herself and her three daughters. Each morning, she burdened the girl with the entirety of the housework. One day, she even demanded that the girl spin an enormous quantity of flax. Desperate, Kroshka-Khabroshka turned to her only friend—the speckled cow in the meadow—and poured out her troubles. The cow told her: “Enter through one ear and crawl out the other.” Khabroshka obeyed, and upon emerging, the flax was spun and woven into fabric. But the wicked woman grew uneasy at Khabroshka’s success.

In the new textile exhibition at Hansen House, Khavroshechka in Jerusalem, the Russian folktale of Kroshka-Khavroshechka and her speckled cow is transformed into a giant, wordless comic carpet. The visual language blends motifs from familiar fairy tales like Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin with the whimsical, richly imaginative illustration styles of artists Batia Kolton and Roni Fahima.

The exhibition spans two galleries on the ground floor of Hansen House. The main gallery features the full Khavroshechka comic alongside two works titled Graves of the Weavers and Weaving and Weeping—self-portrait-like pieces reflecting on time, labor, and the challenges of textile creation.

In the smaller gallery, affectionately dubbed “Hadroshka,” visitors are offered a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process: discarded ideas, sketches, early experiments, and new developments for a future exhibition. This room reveals the depth of the artists’ research and planning, showcasing a visual language shaped by traditional and demanding handcraft techniques.