Museum Studies Commons^™

Los Textiles Procedentes Del Actual Estado De Guerrero, México: Una Revisión A Su Estudio Desde La Perspectiva Arqueológica Y Etnohistórica, Elizabeth Jiménez García

PreColumbian Textile Conference VII / Jornadas de Textiles PreColombinos VII (2016)

En cuevas del actual estado de Guerrero, México, se han encontrado diversos objetos orgánicos como calabazos, cordeles, guaraches, madera, semillas y hojas. Asimismo, se han recuperado fragmentos de textiles que fueron elaborados con distintas técnicas, pigmentos y texturas que dan cuenta de una especialización e intensa actividad económica en tiempos prehispánicos. En el México antiguo los textiles tuvieron múltiples funciones. Fueron muy utilizados como indumentaria de nobles y dioses, formaron parte de rituales y cubrieron objetos sagrados que se guardaron celosamente en templos, palacios y casas de los señores. También tapizaron paredes y se les colocó como doseles, tapetes, colchas, …

Review Of Martens, Sacred Scraps: Quilt And Patchwork Traditions Of Central Asia, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Sacred Scraps: Quilt and Patchwork Traditions of Central Asia

Author: Christine Martens

Published by: International Quilt Study Center & Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2017.

Drawing upon years of extensive travel, field research, and personal interviews with craftsmen and scholars in Central Asia, Chris Martens has produced a magnificent book to accompany the 2017 exhibition at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, for which she served as guest curator. This book, and the exhibition, documents the prolific quilt and patchwork traditions of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Funds for travel, research, and systematic collecting came from …

Review Of The Cultural Legacy Of Uzbekistan In World Collections Conference, Michele Hardy, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

In May 2017, over 370 scholars convened in Tashkent and Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to share their research and mark the publication of an important new series of handsomely produced volumes. Among the participants were former TSA President, Carol Bier, and past TSA Board Member, Michele Hardy. The Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in World Collections is a ten-volume series that documents the richness and diversity of Uzbek tangible and intangible heritage, particularly in the collections of international museums. The volumes-each lavishly illustrated, trilingual (Uzbek, Russian, and English), and beautifully bound-examine some of the richest collections of Uzbek art and culture: the Tretyakov …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

Black Matter, Kahlil Irving

Graduate School of Art Theses

History as we know it, is inherited. Racism, fascism, white supremacy, and Eurocentric dominance have been presented as normal and acceptable within our society for many years. This has allowed police officers to execute Black American’s and not be acquitted for their horrendous crimes. As an activist I want to challenge the status quo. As an artist I am interested in investigating how I can present ideas embody or reflect contemporary issues and concerns. Using different colors can aggressively change how an object is perceived. Historical objects hold many important.

I explore many mediums, but an anchor material that I …

Right To Serve, Right To Lead: Lives And Legacies Of The Usct, Matthew D. Laroche, Hannah M. Christensen, Alexandria J. Andrioli, Jennifer A. Simone, Savannah G. Rose, Jonathan G. Danchik, Laurel J. Wilson, Jonathan E. Tracey, Danielle E. Jones, Ryan D. Bilger, Savannah A. Labbe

Civil War Institute Student Research

This is a catalog for an exhibit that follows the evolution of African-American participation in the Civil War, from slaves, to contrabands, to soldiers of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), as well as the lives of black veterans beyond the war, and their ultimate military and social legacy. Using a variety of period items, it creates a narrative that stretches from the Antebellum Period to the current day. In doing so, the exhibit shows how black sacrifice on the battlefield redefined the war's purpose throughout the divided nation, how Jim Crowe suppressed the memory of black participation after Reconstruction, …

Rose’S Gift: Slavery, Kinship, And The Fabric Of Memory, Mark J. Auslander

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

One of the most evocative objects in the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is an embroidered cloth bag that has come to be known as “Ashley’s Sack”. Stitch-work on the bag, signed “Ruth Middleton”, recounts the bag’s painful history, as a gift presented by an enslaved woman, Rose, to her daughter Ashley, when Ashley was sold at age nine in South Carolina. This paper explores ‘Ashley’s sack’ as an object of history, memory, ritual action, and aesthetic creativity.

Heritage Mine, Not Defined: The Politics Of Culture In The Lakeport Plantation Historic Restoration Project, Aketa Shantel Perry-Guillory

Student Theses and Dissertations

Arkansas Heritage Sites under the direction of Dr. Ruth Hawkins has become one of Arkansas State University’s most successful endeavors for developing heritage tourism in the state of Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta. To understand the processes of restoring a building and transforming it into a community museum, I apply the theories of the politics of culture in historic restoration projects and culture conservation. This case study reviews the problematic complexities of creating and opening a museum with a complex past. Museums are community educational repositories that preserve a particular past. They allow individuals to place themselves in an acting …

Provenance Investigations Of Raw Materials In Pre-Columbian Textiles From Pachacamac; Strontium Isotope Analyses, Karin Margarita Frei, Lena Bjerregaard

PreColumbian Textile Conference VII / Jornadas de Textiles PreColombinos VII (2016)

Pachacamac was considered a sanctuary or oracle by several of the pre-Columbian Andean cultures. As a pilgrimage destination, the site was rich in archaeological artifacts and yielded also many well preserved textiles. Some of the objects found at Pachacamac are considered offerings by the pilgrims to their Gods, and the majority are assumed to be of nonlocal origin. Others are from the Ychsma people, who lived in Pachacamac and the nearby Rimac Valley during the last centuries before the conquest. We have investigated 10 pre-Columbian textile samples, which were supposedly excavated at the archaeological site of Pachacamac, Peru. The textiles …

Algorithmic Aesthetics: Redefining Traditional Islamic Art, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The recent exhibition, “Reverberating Echoes: Contemporary Art Inspired by Traditional Islamic Art,” organized by the Center for the Arts & Religion at the Graduate Theological Union afforded an opportunity for me as curator to reconsider the definition of ‘traditional Islamic art.’ This effort led to the identification of an algorithmic aesthetic of pattern that characterizes artistic production in all media from the 9th through the 12th centuries in what were then Islamic lands, centered in Baghdad, but extending from Spain across North Africa through the Middle East and Iran to Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.

Reframing Islamic Art For The 21st Century, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The celebrated Islamic galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York reopened in 2011 as “Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.” Other major collections of Islamic art have been reorganized and reinstalled in Berlin, Cairo, Cleveland, Copenhagen, Detroit, Kuwait, London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Singapore, and new museums of Islamic art have been established in Doha, Qatar; Honolulu, Hawaii; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Sharjah, U.A.E. In addition, the first museum in North America dedicated to Islamic art recently opened in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This article explores this global phenomenon, …

Alloys And Architecture: Periodic And Quasiperiodic Patterns In Sinan's Selimiye In Edirne, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The marble minbar of the Selimiye mosque in Edirne that was designed by the Ottoman architect, Sinan, and completed in 1575, bears a circular medallion of carved and pierced openwork in each of its triangular framing walls. The carved circular patterns are unusual in having radial symmetry with local five-fold and ten-fold rotations, but no periodic repeat. This contribution explores the relationship of this late 16th-century design to a similar array generated by X-ray diffraction of aluminum alloys, identified as a quasiperiodic pattern, which garnered the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The 16th-century appearance of this pattern in an architectural …

Mediating Nagpra: Bringing Cultural Consideration Back To The Table, Ashley Bartman Watson

Learning Showcase 2016: A Celebration of Discovery, Transformation and Success

Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)

• Became federal law on November 16, 1990 to correct gross inequalities between the protection of Native and non-Native cultural objects.
• Requires collecting institutions to: create an inventory of any Native American human skeletal remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and items of cultural patrimony in their possession.
• Native American or Hawaiian groups can request repatriation if: they can show that they have true ownership of the cultural object or are a lineal descendant of the human remains in question.

Northwest Coast Native American Art: The Relationship Between Museums, Native Americans And Artists, Karrie E. Myers

Museum Studies Theses

Museums today have many responsibilities, including protecting and understanding objects in their care. Many also have relationships with groups of people whose items or artworks are housed within their institutions. This paper explores the relationship between museums and Northwest Coast Native Americans and their artists. Participating museums include those in and out of the Northwest Coast region, such as the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, the Burke Museum, the Royal British Columbia Museum, the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Museum. Museum professionals who conducted research for some of these museums included Franz Boas, …

Review Of Designing Identity: The Power Of Textiles In Late Antiquity. Edited By Thelma K. Thomas, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Designing Identity: The Power of Textiles in Late Antiquity. Edited by Thelma K. Thomas, with contributions by Jennifer L. Ball, Edward Bleiberg, Kathrin Colburn, Helen C. Evans, Christine Kondoleon, Brandie Ratliff, Thelma K. Thomas, Elizabeth D. Williams. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, 2016. 152 p. ISBN: 978-0691169422

This beautifully illustrated book, edited by textile historian Thelma K. Thomas, Associate Professor at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, advances scholarship on textiles of Late Antiquity with interpretive essays by curators, conservators, and historians. As a scholarly contribution offering …

In Search Of Heterotopia: Immersive Experiences In The Museum, Nicolas Crosby

All Master's Theses

Museums everywhere are waging battle to find ways to attract new audience members. In this thesis I draw upon participant observation, interviews, and event planning in order to examine how museums create heterotopic, interactive immersive experiences. I focus on the work of two Seattle-area museums, and a gallery and a museum in Ellensburg. The Entertainment, Music, and Popular Culture museum (EMP), the Nordic Heritage Museum (NHM), and the Museum of Culture and Environment (MCE) developed opportunities for visitors to engage with museum-created heterotopic events. I approach this analysis through a theoretical framework that emphasizes structure and agency. On one hand, …

Antithetical Commentaries On X, Y And The Disruption Of Being, Eva Rocha

Theses and Dissertations

Through discursive essays and poetic narrative, Antithetical Commentaries on X, Y and the Disruption of Being explores the tenuous relationship between modes of measurement and the struggle for human relevance in the post-contemporary digital age. In the introductory essay, “Not the Feather, but the Bird”, I give an overview of the inherent problems of object-oriented ontology, and how it relates to aesthetics and social issues of our times. In the Developmental Overview, I detail how I developed my installation approach and techniques, particularly with regard to the three-way dynamic of the artist:work:viewer relationship and how it can encourage …

Review Of Woven Luxuries: Indian, Persian, Turkish Velvets From The Indictor Collection, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

LUXURIANT AND extravagant are words that come to mind to describe the sheen of brightly coloured velvets on display in this small but stellar exhibition at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, on view to 1 November. The exhibition presents an exceptional private collection of exquisitely designed velvets woven in lands of the Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman empires during the 15th through 17th centuries. Robust blossoms, sinuous vines, and stylised flowers are among the many designs that characterise Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman textiles, including sumptuous velvets with raised pile and metallic threads that shimmer in changing light. Together the products of …

Collaborating With Chicago Urban Communities: The Unforeseen Challenges Of Better Museum Practices, Dionisia Ann Mathios

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on better museum practices, social justice museums, and the unforeseen challenges that museums encounter when collaborating and consulting with communities. More specifically, this project looks at the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) and the exhibit Report to the Public: An Untold Story of the Conservative Vice Lords (CVL), which was co-created with the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Both Chicago institutions worked with public housing residents and the former CVL, a 1960s gang, to give voice to two often unheard communities. Through an anthropological and museum studies perspective, this thesis summarizes the history of museum practice as well …

Review Of Eric Broug, Islamic Geometric Design, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

From the eleventh century C.E., Islamic geometric patterns have continued to evolve in complexity, contributing a distinct aspect of Islamic art and architecture that covers a broad geographic range and temporal spectrum. The underlying principles of these patterns are brilliantly explained in narrative and visual formats by Eric Broug, a Dutch design professional, self-trained and with an M.A. in the history of Islamic architecture from SOAS in London. Offering both an analytical and practical understanding of the construction of Islamic geometric patterns, this book is an unusual hybrid of scholarship and art, combining the qualities of a coffeetable bibelot and …

Geometry: Drawing From The Islamic Tradition, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Getting students involved in careful observation and analysis and encouraging their exploration of cultural forms of expression is an excellent means of introducing mathematical ideas. Geometric patterns abound in Islamic art and architecture. Exhibiting great ingenuity over the centuries, Muslim artists and craftsmen created beautiful patterns to adorn architectural monuments and exquisite objects. The Alhambra in Spain and the Taj Mahal in India offer the most famous examples of extraordinary patterns using brick and glazed tile, or carved and inlaid marble. Other examples of patterns are made using metal, wood, and fiber. Students may gain conceptual and theoretical understanding of …

Opening Remarks To Outing Lorraine At The Schomburg Center, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

This article is an edit of the opening remarks for the event held on May 22nd, 2014 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as part of the In The Life Series supplying Black LGBT programming coordinated by Steven Fullwood. Outing Lorraine included panelists: Alexis DeVeaux, Joi Gresham, and Steven Fullwood and was moderated by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz. Opening remarks provide a biographical description of Lorraine Hansberry's life, prepare the audience for a conversation on the implications for "outing" a black iconic figure, details the purpose for use of primary and secondary sources when, and provides a bibliography for …

Language And Museums: Supporting Alaska Native Languages Through Collaborative Networking, Heather J. Mcclain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the ever-increasing risk of language loss and possible extinction of the world's Indigenous languages, museums are quickly becoming active supporters and valuable resources for communities engaged in revitalization initiatives. Although working with language material is inherently difficult for museums because of their traditionally object based nature, it is imperative for museums to focus on the documentation and preservation of language as intangible cultural heritage (ICH) because of the vital connection between language and culture. This thesis examines how museums in Alaska, particularly the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, Alaska Office, are supporting Alaska Native language and cultural revitalization through collaborative …

Inscribed Cotton Ikat From Yemen In The Tenth Century Ce, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

More than a thousand years ago, Baghdad was capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasid caliphs, and Yemen was a flourishing center of agriculture and trade. Among its famous products were dyestuffs, and cotton cloth with warp stripes, patterned using techniques of compression resist. As the strength of the Abbasid caliphate declined and claims to power gained hold in the provinces, regional artistic styles began to emerge. The rulers of Yemen adopted one of the prerogatives of the Abbasid caliphs, bestowing honor by rewarding their subjects with inscribed textiles called tiraz. From burial sites in Egypt, many such textiles …

Sinan’S Screens: Networks Of Intersecting Polygons In Ottoman Architecture, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

An often overlooked characteristic of Sinan’s architectural production of the 16th century is the use of low screening walls and windows carved of marble with pierced openwork or tracery to let in light and allow for air circulation. Typically these screens display polygonal networks often with intersecting polygons. This paper explores aspects of these carved patterns, which have antecedents in earlier Islamic architecture, attributing particular significance to this architectural feature in the works of Sinan and three successors whom he had trained. These slabs (and their counterparts in forged iron) may be considered études, serving as opportunities for the training …

Ua3/9/2 Subject File - Instruments Of American Excellence Collection, Wku President's Office - Ransdell

WKU Administration Documents

Correspondence regarding the Instruments of American Excellence Collection and exhibit.

Review Of Michel & Nosch, Eds., Textile Terminologies In The Ancient Near East And Mediterranean From The Third To The First Millennia Bc., Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Textile production comprised the major manufacturing industry of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean, yet it has received relatively little scholarly attention. As garments and furnishings, textiles may provide warmth and utility, but they are also indicators of status, objects of trade and tribute, products of technology, and economic generators. The role of textiles is both pervasive and complex, yielding rich and specific vocabularies that do not easily transcend time and space for contemporary understanding. This brilliant volume offers a compilation of twenty-two papers that result from an exciting collaboration between the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile …

The Decagonal Tomb Tower At Maragha And Its Architectural Context: Lines Of Mathematical Thought, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Of several brick tomb towers constructed at Maragha in western Iran before the Mongol conquests, one in particular, Gonbad-e Qabud (593 H. / 1196-97 C.E.), has generated significant recent attention for its unique patterns with pentagons and decagons. Gonbad-e Qabud is also unusual in having a decagonal plan. While both plan and decoration distinguish it from earlier and later towers at Maragha and elsewhere on the Iranian plateau, the ornamental patterns follow a long line of experimentation with geometric expressions that grace many pre-Mongol buildings in Iran. This article examines in particular the overlapping polygons and radial symmetries of the …

Ua3/9/2 Subject File - Instruments Of American Excellence Collection, Wku President's Office - Ransdell

WKU Administration Documents

Correspondence regarding the Instruments of American Excellence Collection and exhibit.

A Museum In A Book: Analyzing Culture Through Decolonizing Arts-Based Methodologies, Sharon Verner Chappell, Drew Chappell

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This paper explores the positivist, museum-based, and touristic constructions of indigenous cultures in the Americas, as represented in the DK Eyewitness series, and then overturns these constructions using an artist book created by the authors. In our analysis of the nonfiction series, we identified three trajectories: cataloguing, consignment to the past, and pleasurable display. Using techniques borrowed from "new historiography" and the decolonizing methodologies of Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), we suggest ways in which adults and young people might "speak back" to these positivist paradigms.