What a wire has bound together, time cannot tear apart…

The exhibition closing event, which will include a guided tour with one of the curators, Katarína Hallonová, will take place on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. at the ÚĽUV Gallery in Košice, located at Mäsiarska 52.

Wire is ÚĽUV’s central material theme for 2026. The exhibition at the ÚĽUV Gallery in Košice, located at Mäsiarska 52, is dedicated to tinkering in its original itinerant form, when tinkers traveled throughout the countryside and focused primarily on repairing everyday objects used by the rural population. Its curators are ethnologist Katarína Kendrová and historian Katarína Hallonová from the Považské Museum in Žilina, who have long specialized in researching and documenting this craft, which has been inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2019. Join us on a journey into the past and discover the beauty of wire craftsmanship at the ÚĽUV Regional Crafts Center in Košice from June 5 to October 30, 2026.

Title: What Wire Has Bound, Time Cannot Separate…
Location: ÚĽUV Gallery Košice, Mäsiarska 52
Open: Monday –Friday | 1:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
Duration: June 5 – October 30, 2026 – extended through November 3, 2026
Curators: Katarína Kendrová, Katarína Hallonová

The constant struggle to make a living in rural areas required a wide range of diverse tools, utensils, and implements that wore out quickly, yet people often lacked the funds to purchase new ones. And it was thanks to the tinkerers that damaged items were given a chance at a second life. On farms and in households, there was probably no tool they wouldn’t try to restore, or whose work didn’t inspire farmers themselves to make repairs at home.

The exhibition explores the fundamental aspects of life in the past, including food preparation and dining, work in the fields and on the farm, and the processing of textile fibers essential for making clothing. Visitors can thus see, all in one place, more than two hundred exhibits of the most diverse functions, shapes, and materials (clay, wood, wicker, horn, sheet metal, glass, porcelain, stoneware, and others), all of which have been repaired with wire or sheet metal.

Ceramic tableware repaired by tinkers predominates, as this was their primary and most common focus. There is also a rich selection of restored sheet metal and wooden containers, as well as kitchen and shepherd’s tools (pots, strainers, coffee roasters, ladles, cauldrons and small pots, weighing scales, gelety, troughs and small troughs, butter churns, shepherd’s ladles, cheese and gingerbread molds, salt shakers, and scoops). Those interested in the subject can also see interesting tinker repairs on agricultural tools, such as shovels, pitchforks, scythes and sickles, rakes, donkey yokes, baskets, and flails. Spinning wheels, distaffs, carding combs, heated irons, and many other antique objects have also been restored by wireworkers. Among the rare exhibits are also precisely and delicately braided glass, porcelain, and pipes made of sea foam.

The exhibition is enriched by expert texts with photographs, as well as detailed descriptions of specific tinker repair techniques—ranging from basic ones, such as braiding into wire mesh, patching, embroidery, and soldering, to simpler ones—such as securing damaged parts of objects with a wire loop or a strip of sheet metal—as well as more complex techniques.

All of the exhibits on display come from the collections of the Považské Museum and the Slovak National Museum in Martin.

We look forward to your visit!