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Museum

TAMAT is located in the museum district, in the heart of Tournai and exhibits tapestries and textile art. The museum preserves, studies, enriches and promotes more than five centuries of textile heritage thanks to an innovative museum policy and strong and dynamic public action.

Discover TAMAT’s museum missions and the teams that carry them out on a daily basis.

TAMAT highlights the work of artists and craftsmen from the 15th century to the present day. The tapestry and textile collections of TAMAT, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, the Province of Hainaut and the City of Tournai are presented in permanent and temporary exhibitions and are of great historical, artistic and technical value.

The preservation of textile pieces is a task requiring expertise and dexterity, due to the fragility of their raw material.

TAMAT can rely on two conservator-restorers who, in the museum’s restoration workshop, also pass on their know-how to both visitors and professionals in the sector.

TAMAT’s research programme, which is open to external researchers and carried out in collaboration with scientific institutions such as KIK-IRPA or universities, is closely linked to the programming of temporary exhibitions, the acquisition policy and the inventory. Research is also carried out in the context of the revision of permanent exhibitions and the preparation of publications.

In addition, the museum is a resource centre for all studies on tapestry and textile arts, notably through the presence of a documentation centre. It is therefore a platform for researchers, universities, other museums and even artists.

For forty years, TAMAT has been supporting and welcoming artists from all over the world thanks to creative residencies. The transversal programme encourages artists to carry out research in situ, nourished by all that TAMAT has to offer.

After a year of experimenting with and around textiles, the research is compiled into a catalogue and the results are displayed to the general public.