Fish In The Desert – North Africa’S Textile Tradition Between Indigenous Identity And Exogenous Shifts In Meaning,
2018
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Fish In The Desert – North Africa’S Textile Tradition Between Indigenous Identity And Exogenous Shifts In Meaning, Silvia Dolz
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Among the oldest handcraft products of North Africa are woven, knotted, and embroidered textiles (flat woven fabrics, knotted carpets, clothing) primarily made of wool and hair from sheep, goats, or camels. Those products have great importance, beyond their practical purpose, as a communicative and artistic medium. Changes and re-evaluations of the textile from a utilitarian object with potent pre-Islamic and Islamic symbolism towards a modern abstract art object reveal centuries of cultural transfer between the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe on the one hand, and between North and West Africa on the other. At the same time, this has …
The Tent-Dweller: Visual Markers Of Migration In Art,
2018
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
The Tent-Dweller: Visual Markers Of Migration In Art, Sara Clugage
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
The current migrant crisis has brought new complexity to an object that enables transition: the tent. Tents are structures most often meant to be temporary-they both practically enable journeys and visually signify the temporary. A language of migration, territory, and dislocation is mapped onto canvas, ropes, and poles. Migration depends on concepts of land rights, movement, and the finite duration of a journey. As Deleuze and Guattari set for in “A Thousand Plateaus,” migrants move from one place to another but are defined as belonging to those spaces. Nomads, on the one hand, do not have land distributed to them-they …
Reawakening Chahta Nan Tvnna (Choctaw Textiles),
2018
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Reawakening Chahta Nan Tvnna (Choctaw Textiles), Jennifer Byram
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Choctaw people have crafted textiles from the land for thousands of years. Native to Mississippi and Alabama, U.S.A., the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma resides today in the Southeastern part of the state and numbers over 200,000 citizens. This paper comes out of the tribe’s Historic Preservation department’s work in conjunction with community efforts to reawaken Chahta nan tvnna, Choctaw textiles. By piecing together disparate parts of the Choctaw textile narrative, the Choctaw community is creating new textile work that recalls the ancestors and brings the identity of Chahta nan tvnna to new generations of Choctaw artisans.
Milingimbi Artists Partnerships,
2018
Australian National University in Canberra
Milingimbi Artists Partnerships, Louise Hamby
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Aboriginal women artists who live on the island of Milingimbi in eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia have had a long engagement with people outside of the community. This began with the arrival of Macassan traders over 400 years ago who came primarily in search of trepang. They brought new things and ideas with them; some became absorbed into the lifestyle of the local people. One item in particular is most relevant to the Deep Local and those operating outside of it. The praus that brought the Macassans to Arnhem Land were powered by sails. The Arnhem …
A Local Motif; Use Of Kōwhaiwhai Patterns In Printed Textiles,
2018
Auckland War Memorial Museum
A Local Motif; Use Of Kōwhaiwhai Patterns In Printed Textiles, Jane Groufsky
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
This paper considers the role of patterns derived from kowhaiwhai in printed textiles, and how these have been used to project a national identity. Kowhaiwhai refers to the design traditionally used my Maori (the Indigenous people of New Zealand) on parts of meetings houses, canoe paddles, and other painted objects. Although kowhaiwhai art has developed to include figural representation, it is the curvilinear decoration based on the natural forms of koru (fern shoots), kape (crescent), and rauru (spiral) which has become a distinctly recognizable “New Zealand” pattern. Situated in the meeting house, kowhaiwhai designs have a style and meaning which …
The Techniques Of Samitum. Based On A Reconstruction Of A Silk From The Oseberg Burial,
2018
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
The Techniques Of Samitum. Based On A Reconstruction Of A Silk From The Oseberg Burial, Åse Eriksen
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
A collection of samitum was found in the Norwegian Viking burial Osebert (834 CE) in 2014. I got the opportunity to study some of the fragments and could reconstruct a nearly full pattern unit from six narrow bands, once cut from the same fabric. I wove a small piece of this fabric in my ordinary flatloom, using both modern dyestuff and fabric spun silk material. Fragments found in Egypt from 400 AD show that both tapestry and taquete were woven in the same fabric. When searching for the loom used for the original samitum fabric, I made a vertical warp …
Indian Basketry In Yosemite Valley, 19th-20th Century:
Gertrude “Cosie” Hutchings Mills, Tourists And The National Park Service,
2018
Boxborough, MA
Indian Basketry In Yosemite Valley, 19th-20th Century: Gertrude “Cosie” Hutchings Mills, Tourists And The National Park Service, Catherine K. Hunter
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Basketry is the highest art form of Native Americans in California. I will focus on Yosemite Valley starting in the 1850s when Native Americans adapted progressively to contact with miners, settlers, and tourists. As a Research Associate at the Peabody Museum, Andover, Massachusetts, I inventoried the Native American Basket Collection. The unpublished Hutchings Mills Collection, acquired by Gertrude ‘Cosie’ Hutchings in Yosemite prior to 1900, caught my attention. In 1986, the Department of the Interior requested the collection be loaned, exchanged, or purchased as “the single most important assemblage from that period.” The collection did not leave Andover; however, one …
Tinctorial Cartographies: Plant, Dye & Place,
2018
www.annaheywood-jones.com
Tinctorial Cartographies: Plant, Dye & Place, Anna Heywood-Jones
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
We live in a plant-dominated biosphere, and yet the relevance and meaning of vegetal life, beyond its contribution to human existence, is rarely considered. This way of thinking has led us to see nature as external to ourselves, as “other,” as that mysterious realm beyond the human sphere of being. As in visual culture, plant life possesses signifiers and coded meanings in its contextual configurations. Botanical literacy offers insight into environmental, sociocultural, and historical narratives of place, as the forests and herbaceous margins of our communities speak of complex past, a parallel history of survival and adaptation. Plants and textiles, …
Weaving Authenticity: Artesanías Or The Art Of The Textile In Chiapas, Mexico [Poster],
2018
Antioch College
Weaving Authenticity: Artesanías Or The Art Of The Textile In Chiapas, Mexico [Poster], Addison Nace
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
In Chiapas, Mexico textiles live in different institutions from the market to the museum. In these spaces tourists, art professionals, and weavers manifest their varying perspectives of the authenticity of textiles. I examine the construction of authenticity through these spaces. In the museum, textiles become authentic because they represent a vision of an idyllic past. The authenticity created by the market is entangled in the acts of production by weaving cooperatives and consumption by tourists. Weavers see their work in intertwined thread with identity, culture, art, and economic necessity. Tourists often fetishize the handmade and cultural ties of the objects, …
Ancient, Indigenous And Iconic Textile Motifs In Contemporary Fashion Case Study: Defining Concepts Through Textile Designs: Appropriation, Collaboration, Provenance And Identity,
2018
SOAS, London University
Ancient, Indigenous And Iconic Textile Motifs In Contemporary Fashion Case Study: Defining Concepts Through Textile Designs: Appropriation, Collaboration, Provenance And Identity, Kristin Scheel Lunde
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
This paper investigates the material and visual characteristics of certain ancient and historical textile motifs with roots in Chinese and African culture, and their sudden appearance in new geographical and cultural context. Appropriated into western contemporary textile and fashion trends, this paper examines the new roles of these designs in context of foreigness, identity, and hybridity. Their consumption and reception both within and beyond their original cultures is a central theme, and it is evident that their reception in both locations, although different, exhibits some similarities. Exploring the transcultural consumption and reception that occurs in various cultural locations this paper …
Embroidering Paradise: Suzanis As A Place Of Creative Agency And Acculturation For Uzbek Women In 19th Century Bukhara,
2018
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Embroidering Paradise: Suzanis As A Place Of Creative Agency And Acculturation For Uzbek Women In 19th Century Bukhara, Shannon Ludington
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Central Asian women have long been a point of fascination, written and sung about by others. Exoticized as an oriental “other,” there are many legends but only few historic details known, and then recorded not by themselves but by foreign men. A number of excellent books on women in Uzbekistan under the Soviet Union, and on Uzbek craft and culture in general have been published but most authors conclude there simply is not enough evidence to say anything more about Uzbek women from their own perspective before Soviet times. In Embroidering Paradise: Suzanis as a Place of Creative Agency and …
Occam’S Razor: Origins Of A Classical Turkish Carpet Design?,
2018
George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum
Occam’S Razor: Origins Of A Classical Turkish Carpet Design?, Sumru Belger Krody
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
This case study will explore the origins of a Turkish carpet design by discussing a thirteenth century Mamluk textile cover in The Textile Museum’s collection. Seemingly little connected textile types help us understand how textile motifs and designs moved from one to another, from one to another type, from one culture to another, from one part of the world to another, and from one period to another through the old trade routes. Examining these factors and looking beyond a single type of textile are of paramount importance for understanding and evaluating textile design traditions. The first section of the paper …
Containing Tradition, Embracing Change: Weaving Together Plant Materials In Northern Latin America,
2018
www.kathrynrousso.com
Containing Tradition, Embracing Change: Weaving Together Plant Materials In Northern Latin America, Kathryn Rousso
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
From southern Mexico to northern Colombia, palm fronds, wild pineapple fibers, agave fibers, wild bamboo and cane have been woven into bags, baskets, mats, hats, and brooms for as long as anyone can remember. These items carry great historical and cultural value to many Indigenous people including the Otomi (Mexico), Maya (Mexico and Guatemala), Lenca (Honduras), Ngobe-Bugle (Panama), Embera (Panama and Columbia), plus the Guane and Zunu (Columbia) providing a “sense of place” for those who harvest, prepare, weave, and use or sell plant material woven items in each of their unique environments. Spanish colonization, civil wars, modern politics, tourism, …
The Rayed Head And Stepped Platform: A Core Symbol Of The Southern Andean Iconographic Series,
2018
Brooklyn Museum
The Rayed Head And Stepped Platform: A Core Symbol Of The Southern Andean Iconographic Series, Nancy B. Rosoff
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
This paper will explore various manifestations of the Rayed Head motif that is found on textiles produced by the Nasca, Sihuas, and Pucara cultures during the Early Intermediate Period (200 BCE – 600 CE), in the southern Andean region of South America. The Brooklyn Museum’s famous Nasca mangle, also known as “The Paracas Textile,” features repeating images of the Rayed Head motif on its interior cotton panel. Sihuas mantles also display distinctive manifestations of the motif in the form of a large rectangular head with highly stylized features and surrounded by radiating appendages. The late textile scholar and archaeologist Joerg …
Place-Based Textiles In Post Wwii Poland,
2018
University of South Carolina
Place-Based Textiles In Post Wwii Poland, Jane Przybysz
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
When WWII broke out, textile art faculty Stefan and Helena Galkowski left the Arts Academy in Crakow, Poland to take refuge in the countryside. There, they continued their artistic practice, utilizing materials close at hand - undyed sheep’s wool – to make work they regarded as carrying on a distinctly Polish and politically-charged weaving tradition. After the War, even sheep’s wool was scarce. Polish textile artists like Magdelena Abakanowicz seized upon a plentiful local material – sisal – to improvise new textile art-making methods and forms. In the wake of WWII, the nascent Polish communist government saw in pre-WWII artisan …
Local Wear: A Chat About Textiles & The Body,
2018
Kansas State University
Local Wear: A Chat About Textiles & The Body, Emily J. Pascoe
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
In this presentation, I propose that worn-in garments are a shared aspect of the relationship between humans and textiles, while also being unique to the user. The relationship between natural, cultural, and material forms, resulting in wear on textiles, begins with the human body. The human body is the most universal local. It is the essential qualifier to be a part of the human species. Although it is a biological form, how the body behaves, and the shapes it is molded into, are influenced by culture. The textiles that enclose the body accrue signs of the interactions. Even if the …
Silk Velvets Identified As Byzantine: Were Warp-Looped Silk Pile Velvets Woven Under The Byzantine Empire?,
2018
Turkish Cultural Foundation
Silk Velvets Identified As Byzantine: Were Warp-Looped Silk Pile Velvets Woven Under The Byzantine Empire?, Sumiyo Okumura
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
This paper will examine the possibility of whether warp-looped pile velvets, made of silk, were woven during the Byzantine Empire. This study is a continuation of my research for “Velvet and Patronage: the Origin and Historical Background of Ottoman and Italian Velvets.” Research has been conducted under these five themes: 1. Byzantine silk industry; 2. The terminology of velvet in Greek; 3. Velvets in Byzantine written sources; 4. Historical background: the relation between Byzantines and Latin powers, Turks and the Middle East; 5. Latin trade in the Black Sea and 6. Velvet production in Anatolia in the Byzantine period.
The Untold Story Of Inuit Printed Fabrics From Kinngait Studios, Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada,
2018
Textile Museum of Canada
The Untold Story Of Inuit Printed Fabrics From Kinngait Studios, Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada, Roxane Shaughnessy, Anna Richard
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
The Textile Museum of Canada holds a collection of close to 200 printed fabrics designed by Inuit artists at Kinngait Studios in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada in the 1950s and 1960s. The pieces are owned by the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative (WBEC) and are on longterm loan to the Museum. Building on centuries-old Inuit graphic traditions, printmaking was introduced in Kinngait in 1957 as part of a larger initiative to encourage handicraft production for sale in the Canadian south. By the 1960s, the studio had a number of Inuit artists who contributed to the Kinngait Studios’ print program which …
The Radical Fiber Art Practices Of The Yarn Mission: A Case Study,
2018
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
The Radical Fiber Art Practices Of The Yarn Mission: A Case Study, Lila Stone
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
This paper aims to investigate how The Yarn Mission uses fiber arts practices to challenge racism and sexism through the lens of a case study. The Yarn Mission is a “pro-Black, pro-rebellion, pro-community” knitting collective that formed in St. Louis, Missouri in response to the tragic death of Mike Brown at the end of 2014. It now has chapters in Minneapolis, MN; Atlanta, GA; New York City; and Wilmington, DE. This research draws on a series of semi-structured interviews (with questions that prompt discussion) with selected founders and current members of The Yarn Mission. I will conduct both phone and …
Living Organisms For Living Spaces: Shifting The Function Of Material,
2018
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Living Organisms For Living Spaces: Shifting The Function Of Material, Juliana Silva Diaz
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
This document explains the creative and analytical processes behind the project Living Organisms for Living Spaces. This art project examines the conceptual considerations around material by analyzing ‘objects’ – specifically fabric and textile ornaments – from Colombia’s material culture. The project explores the symbolic meaning of these objects that have both a Catholic and colonial legacy in society.
