Upcoming textile events

The new issue of our journal, Asian Textiles, is now out and should be winging its way to members. A pdf of it will also be uploaded to the Members Resources section of our website.

I really enjoyed reading the article on Burmese sazigyo by the late Ralph Isaacs OBE. We have a small collection of these manuscript binding tapes, which Ralph kindly examined and commented on back in 2010. This particular article is dedicated to the analysis of tapes done by the late Peter Collingwood OBE, and has some great diagrams. It also provides an insight into Peter’s method of working and is richly illustrated.

Other articles in the journal include Tibetan dress in Darjeeling in the early 19th century, May Beattie as a benefactor of the Ashmolean, and Discovering Moroccan textiles – a journey with Sheila Paine.

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A new free exhibition focussing on the Ainu people opened recently at Japan House in London. It is entitled Ainu Stories: Contemporary Lives by the Saru River.

“Historically, members of the Ainu community were not able to fully express their distinct culture, however a movement to celebrate and sustain the Ainu language, textiles, crafts and traditions continues to gather pace, in particular among younger members of the Ainu community.

Ainu Stories is a collaboration with the people of Biratori, an area located in the Saru River basin in southern Hokkaido. Through intimate video interviews and displays of contemporary Ainu works, the exhibition explores four central themes of contemporary Ainu culture: the critically endangered language; society and the preservation of the environment; Ainu textiles, song and dance; and woodcarving and tourism.” – Japan House website

An illustrated review of the exhibition by Urban Adventurer can be viewed here.

Photo by Urban Adventurer

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Next Thursday, 30 November 2023, the Fashion and Textile Museum (London) will host an online talk by Aarathi Prasad, the author of a new book on Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses. The talk begins at 18:00 GMT and you can book for it here.

“Prasad’s Silk is a cultural and biological history from the origins and ancient routes of silk to the biologists who learned the secrets of silk-producing animals, manipulating the habitats and physiologies of moths, spiders and molluscs……… From the moths of China, Indonesia and India to the spiders of South America and Madagascar, to the silk-producing molluscs of the Mediterranean, Silk is a book rich in the passionate connections made by women and men of science to the diversity of the animal world. It is an intoxicating mix of biography, intellectual history and science writing that brings to life the human obsession with silk.” – Harper Collins website

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An exhibition devoted to Syrian textiles opened at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York State last month and will run until 28 January 2024.

“Stories of Syria’s Textiles: Art and Heritage across Two Millennia highlights textiles’ outstanding contributions to Syrian culture during antiquity and the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as today……. In the exhibition’s first section, which focuses on the ancient cities of Dura-Europos and Palmyra, ancient textile fragments will be displayed with sculptures that depict people wearing luxurious clothing with intricate embroidery and silks from China: together, these objects evoke and attest to Syria’s role at the western edge of the Silk Routes in antiquity. The second section features clothing designed and created by skilled artisans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These textiles reveal the social and cultural traditions not only of elite city residents in Aleppo and Damascus, but also of desert nomads and villagers living in the Syrian countryside and mountains.” – museum website.

Woman’s coat, probably from Northern Syria, late 19th-early 20th century. Photograph courtesy of the Museum of International Folk Art.

An online talk linked to this exhibition takes place on Thursday 30 November 2023 at 5:30 pm EST, which is 22:30 GMT. Maya Alkateb-Chami and Rania Kataf share their perspectives on ongoing efforts to document and preserve Syria’s textile heritage in Syrian Textiles Up Close. Click here to register for this free event.

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The next OATG event takes place on Thursday 7 December at 18:30 GMT. This is a Zoom lecture by OATG member Sheila Fruman, entitled Pull of the Thread: Textile Travels of a Generation. Sheila will present highlights from her recent book of the same name in which she studied “intrepid travelers [who]combed the streets and bazaars of Central and South Asia finding, researching, collecting and selling textile treasures to interested Westerners.  Taken together, their stories are an enlightening guide to understanding how we connect to the past, and how textiles connect the world.”

This should be of particular interest to OATG members as two of Sheila’s nine subjects – John Gillow and Joss Graham – are fellow members.

As usual this event is free for members, with a small fee payable by non-members. Click here for more information and to register.

To whet your appetite, an extract from Sheila’s book – along with some fabulous photos – is available to read in the Cabana Magazine blog here.

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A wide range of textile-related events coming up

A new exhibition has just opened at the Royal Geographical Society in London celebrating Early British women explorers in Arabia. It will run until 5 March 2023.

The exhibition features photographs, paintings and maps of Arabia illustrating the journeys of five extraordinary British Women: Lady Anne Blunt (equestrian), Gertrude Bell (diplomat and archaeologist), Freya Stark (writer and explorer), Lady Evelyn Cobbold, and Princess Alice Countess of Athlone.

Freya Stark S0000661/RGS-IBG

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On Thursday 9 February 2023 Frances Wood will be giving an online talk on Chinese Illustration and Printmaking in China. She will discuss the “fascinating history of Chinese illustration—from the invention of printing in the 7th century through to the development of the complex sets of woodblock printing we see today.

Early illustrations were mainly of Buddhist subjects but by the 10th century books of all types, from literature to technological manuals, were widely available: expensive editions were beautifully illustrated whilst cheap chapbooks flooded the other end of the market. Colour illustrations and prints appeared from the 12th century, made from complex sets of woodblocks, most notably the ‘New Year’ prints that decorated houses at that auspicious festival.” – Museum website.

Frances has worked for more than 30 years as Curator of the Chinese collections in the British Library. I think that many of these woodcuts may show people in the dress of that time. This talk is one of a series linked to the current exhibition at the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath entitled Revolution, Propaganda, Art: Printmaking in Modern China, which runs until 3 June 2023.

For more details and registration for this free online talk, which begins at 18:30 GMT, please click here.

The video below, created several years ago by Francis Gerard and Haiyao Zheng, should hopefully whet your appetite.

https://vimeo.com/142991238?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=45036389

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On Saturday 11 February 2023 the New England Rug Society will be hosting an online talk on Swedish textiles. This event is co-sponsored by the TMA/SC and the Textile Museum. This speaker is Gunnar Nilssen and his subject is Northern Delights: Swedish Textiles from 1680 to 1850.

“Certain textile techniques unique to rural communities in Sweden have a long history, and the best pieces stand comparison with the most celebrated traditional textile art elsewhere in Europe, including the best Flemish-weave and röllakan examples. Yet they remain little known outside their locality.  In times past, the peasantry in Skåne, southern Sweden, devised and utilised five different textile techniques about which little has been written in English.  In this program, Collector Gunnar Nilsson lets us into the secrets of munkabälte, dukagång, krabbasnår, upphämta and trensaflossa.” – Press release

This talk takes place at 18:00 GMT (10:00 PT, 13:00 ET), and you can register for it here.

Carriage cushion, röllakan (interlock tapestry), 48 x 121cm, Skytts härad (county) southwestern Skåne, inscribed and dated (in mirror reverse) END-IHS 1780

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On Tuesday 21 February 2023 the Hajji Baba Club will host an online talk by independent researcher Gebhart Blazek entitled Maghreb Mastery.

“The Moroccan carpet weaving culture is commonly described as a female domain, which has always been passed on from mother to daughter, from generation to generation. Production served only the family’s own needs, and commercialization did not take place until the 20th century. This picture certainly has a strong justification, but on closer examination it is inaccurate and appears more multifaceted and differentiated in detail.

In the Middle Atlas, as well as in eastern Morocco and beyond in the more easterly regions of the Maghreb, professional male master weavers who carried out orders for wealthy families as itinerant craftsmen played an important role. In addition, in the local context, the works of semi-professional female master weavers also had a major impact on local production for everyday family needs.” – HBC website.

Non-members are welcome to attend this Zoom event, which takes place at 17:00 ET, 22:00 GMT. Click here for more details and registration.

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The next OATG event takes place on Thursday 23 February 2023, when Dr Alex Green of the British Museum will give a presentation on Honouring the Buddha: Trade textiles and Burmese wall paintings.

The production of art in Burma is primarily related to the generation of merit, and objects made in homage of the Buddha were necessarily objects of beauty. For example, upon entering a temple the viewer is enveloped in a richly textured environment, comprising architectural spaces, sculptures, and mural paintings. The Burmese murals were explicitly produced in order to create a sacred space as beautiful as the heavens that was worthy to commemorate the Buddha and house Buddha images. To do so, artists and donors incorporated the imagery and patterning of luxury textiles into the wall paintings, demonstrating a strong conceptual overlap between these two art forms. This presentation considers the ways in which luxury trade textiles impacted the production of wall paintings in Burma, focussing upon the 17th to 19th centuries.

This event begins at 18:30 GMT and as usual is free for OATG members, with a small fee for non-members. More details and how to register can be found here.

A reminder to all members that recordings of past events can be found in the Members Resource area of our website, using the current password – which can be found at the back of each Asian Textiles journal. The recent talk by Rachel Peat on Japanese textiles in the British Royal Collection has now been uploaded. The password will shortly be changing, so look for it in the next edition of our journal.

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A new exhibition opens this month at Japan House in London, and runs until 11 June 2023. Kumihimo translates as ‘joining threads together’ – something that the exhibition organisers have been doing since 1652.

“Kumihimo: Japanese Silk Braiding by Domyo brings the story of Japanese braiding to life with floor-to-ceiling installations, absorbing video, creative displays of equipment and tools and more than 50 different examples of the braids themselves, imaginatively presented throughout the gallery. The exhibition is divided into three sections; The History of Kumihimo, which explores its 1300-year past; The Structure of Kumihimo, which allows guests to get up close to the processes; and The Future of Kumihimo, which encourages guests to join in the discussions on future possibilities and potential.” – Japan House website

Tickets are free and can be booked through this link.

This video shows two different tools used to make the braids. I found the process quite mesmerising.

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Textiles in Burman Culture with Sylvia Fraser-Lu

One of the first books we ever bought on the subject of Asian textiles was Handwoven Textiles of South-East Asia by Sylvia Fraser-Lu, so I was delighted to learn that she will be giving an online talk on Burmese textiles next month.

“Sylvia Fraser-Lu’s new book, Textiles in Burman Culture, gives an overview of the history and evolution of textiles made and used by the Burman (Bama) people. This ethnic majority group comprises approximately 70 percent of the present-day population of Burma (Myanmar). The book describes and illustrates textiles made for royalty, religious leaders, and commoners—with information on fibers, dyes, and weaving techniques. Fraser-Lu also explores the importance of cloth in the life cycle, literature, and in trade relations with neighboring states.”

“Colorful photographs feature some of Burma’s most iconic textiles: wave-patterned tapestry-weave lun-taya acheik, embroidered wall hangings (kalaga), and intricately patterned Buddhist manuscript binding ribbons (sa-zi-gyo) made on a card loom. In addition to visiting the major textile centers, Fraser-Lu also ventured into the more remote areas of the Burman heartland to find new information on important lesser known textiles from Rakhine, Yaw, Shwebo, Pyay, and Shan State that have been made for sale in the Burman market.” Textile Museum website

This free online discussion is organised as part of the Rug and Textile Appreciation sessions by the Textile Museum and takes place on 9 January 2021 at 11am EST which is 1600 GMT.

To register please click here.