Jakup Ferri exhibition in Budapest: colourful textiles tell gentle, surreal stories

Budapest’s spring exhibition calendar gets a vivid, textile-rich highlight with Jakup Ferri: RUB-A-DUB-DUB, the first comprehensive solo presentation in Hungary of the Kosovo-born, Pristina-based artist. Running from 3 April to 30 May 2026, the show brings together previously unseen textile works alongside embroidered pieces from Ferri’s long-running We We series and oil paintings.

The opening took place on 1 and 2 April 2026, with speakers highlighting the collaborative nature of Ferri’s textiles and the way his playful imagery reconnects viewers with the value of everyday life and human relationships.

What to expect

Ferri is best known for vibrant paintings and embroideries featuring ordinary people, animals and hybrid creatures in scenes that often feel absurd yet gentle — sometimes unfolding as immersive environments that “wrap around” the viewer. While the works are frequently cheerful on the surface, the exhibition text points to a discreet political layer shaped by Kosovo’s peripheral cultural position and complex recent history, approached not through confrontation but through humour, intimate moments, and everyday narratives.

Textile as a shared process

During the opening, Kosovo’s ambassador Delfin Pllana described Ferri’s practice by stressing that textiles in this context are not just a medium but a collaborative process. He said:

“One of the most remarkable features of his oeuvre is his use of textiles — not merely as a means of expression, but as part of a collaboration-based process created together with craftspeople from Kosovo and the wider region. In this way, traditional techniques are transformed into contemporary stories, where carpets and stitching patterns carry memories, identity and shared experiences. His scenes, filled with people, animals and imaginative beings, are like gentle, surreal tales about everyday life.”

He closed his speech by underlining the exhibition’s wider message:

“This exhibition reminds us of something simple but important: the value of everyday life, human relationships, and the need to look at the world with curiosity and imagination. It also highlights the importance of cultural exchange programmes, which strengthen ties between Kosovo and Hungary through art.”

“Accepting the organising force of chaos”

Dr Júlia Fabényi also emphasised the communal aspect of making — and the way Ferri’s works expand the frame while establishing their own order. She said:

“The works are created through community collaboration. The women who weave — from Albania to Burkina Faso — are part of the working process. Jakup Ferri’s works completely push beyond frames, while creating a new order: an order in which we must accept the organising force of chaos and the presence of parallel narratives — all of this in works where his small figurative scenes speak of togetherness and separateness.”

Background for international readers: who is Jakup Ferri?

Born in 1981 in Pristina, Ferri studied at the University of Arts in Pristina and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. He has exhibited widely at biennials and institutions, and in 2022 represented Kosovo at the 59th Venice Biennale with The Monumentality of Everyday.

Opening time and venue

Exhibition: 3 April – 30 May 2026

Venue: Molnár Ani Gallery – Budapest, Bródy Sándor u. 36, 1088

Why it’s worth a visit

RUB-A-DUB-DUB is immediately engaging — full of colour, movement and strange-familiar characters — but it also rewards slower viewing, especially in the tactile rhythms of embroidery and textile. It is, in essence, an invitation to look away from the noise of the “big picture” and back towards the small-scale truths of daily life: relationships, shared making, and the quiet power of imagination.

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