A selection of events covering textiles from Ladakh, China, Burma, Turkey and many more…..

First a reminder of a couple of events covered in the last blog, which take place this week.

The Museum of East Asian Art in Bath is celebrating International Womens’ Day on Wednesday 8 March with a free online talk by Mary Ginsberg, who has curated their current exhibition Revolution, Propaganda, Art: Printmaking in Modern China. The title of her talk is Women in Modern Chinese Prints: Stylish Beauties and Revolutionary Warriors.

“Before the establishment of the PRC, women were much more commonly presented as glamourous, urban beauties. In the 1950s, artists transformed these women into model socialist workers. Until the end of the 1970s, almost all art had political content, and images of women conformed to propaganda requirements. Since the Cultural Revolution, women are shown as individuals, rather than types. This talk will survey Chinese women in 20th century graphics, including advertisements, popular prints and posters.” Museum website

This talk takes place online at 18:30 GMT and booking is required.

Image ©: Dandelion, 1959 by Wu Fan

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Thursday 9 March sees the opening of an exciting new exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. Ikat: A Compelling World of Cloth runs until 29 May 2023 and showcases over one hundred examples of textiles from across the globe using the ikat technique. These include hangings and coats from Uzbekistan, kimono from Japan, ponchos from Bolivia and several textiles from across Indonesia.

Pardah hanging (detail), late 19^th century, Silk Road (Uzbekistan)

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Also taking place on Thursday 9 March are two online talks hosted by the Craft History Workshop – thanks to Sandra Sardjono for sharing this information. The first of these is A Workshop of Women: Byzantine-style Gold-figure Embroidery in 18th Century Istanbul by Catherine Volmensky

This talk “focuses on a workshop active in Istanbul in the eighteenth century, which produced religious textiles with Christian imagery and Ottoman-style ornamental borders. The Greek woman who ran this workshop, Despoineta, was a very skilled artist and embroiderer; her pupils additionally found success creating Byzantine-style gold-figure embroideries, demonstrating the active processes of knowledge transfer. ” – Craft History website.

The second talk is Textiles of Silver and Gold: Exploring the Development and Meanings of Burmese Shwe Chi Doe

These textiles are usually heavily decorated using gold and silver thread, sequins and beads and are also known as kalaga. In this talk Rebecca Hall “explores the connections shwe chi doe textiles have with the multifaceted and multicultural landscape of Burma in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, followed by a glimpse at the continued production of these textiles in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In so doing, we can see the influences of immigrating Chinese populations, the connections Burma has had with neighboring India, and the central role of Buddhist stories and practices for a more complete understanding of the connections between craft and national histories.” – Craft History website.

These talks begin at 1400 EST, which is 2200 GMT and are free on Zoom, but you do need to register.

Kalaga from Burma 2023, Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, accessed 6 March 2023

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Although the OATG is based in Oxford we are an international group, with a growing membership from outside of the UK. Our Australian members may therefore be interested in this in-person event, which takes place at the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide this Saturday 11 March from 10am.

The event starts with the launch of the book Interwoven Journeys: The Michael Abbott Collections of Asian Art, celebrating the generous gifts of textiles, ceramics, sculptures, photographs and paintings from South and Southeast Asia Mr Abbott has donated to cultural institutions in Australia. Some of these textiles form the basis of an exhibition of the same name on show at AGSA until 2 July 2023. On show are textiles from Bali, Sumatra and Java, including the oldest know complete Indonesian batik textile.

Later that day there will be a symposium led by experts in this field, including OATG member Maria Wronska-Friend. Subjects include Javanese batik and Sasak textiles from Lombok.

Places are limited so booking is essential.

Indonesia, Ceremonial cloth and sacred heirloom, with two figures in a garden or forest, 1362 – 1422, possibly east Java, reportedly found in Lampung region, Indonesia, cotton with indigo dye, hand-drawn tulis batik, Gift of Michael Abbott AO QC through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 2008, Adelaide.

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A new exhibition opens on 16 March at the American Folk Art Museum in New York. It is entitled What That Quilt Knows About Me and features around forty quilts.

“Spanning from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries, the works on view will reveal a range of poignant and sometimes unexpected biographies. From a pair of enslaved sisters in antebellum Kentucky to a convalescent British soldier during the Crimean War, the exhibition explores stories associated with both the makers and recipients of the works. ” – Museum website

Possibly West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1875–1895. Cotton, silk, wool, and ink, with cotton embroidery. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York.

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On 18 March the New England Rug Society will host an online talk by Gerard Paquin on the subject of Silk and Wool: Crosscurrent Influences in Turkish Rugs and Textiles. This talk is co-sponsored by the Hajji Baba Club.

“This presentation will document the influence of Ottoman textile designs on Turkish rugs, and the impetus for those artistic borrowings. It will also examine the impact of rug design on textiles, and the use of both as architectonic elements, in tent as well as town.” – NERS website.

Click here for more details and to register for this free talk which begins at 1300 ET (1800 GMT).

Knotted pile wool rug, Turkey, 14th century. Turkish Islamic Arts Museum, Istanbul

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Last but DEFINITELY not least is the next OATG event, which takes place online on Thursday 23 March at the earlier than usual time of 1630 GMT. Our speaker is OATG member Monisha Ahmed and her subject is The Fabric of Life – Textiles from the Ladakh Himalayas.

This presentation will explore weaving traditions in Ladakh, discussing the history of fibres and textiles, their use and transformation over time. It will examine changes to the tradition first by the Moravian Missionaries and government Handicraft Centres, and more recently by Ladakhi fashion designers. Dr Ahmed has been involved with textiles in Ladakh for decades. Her doctoral degree from Oxford University developed into the book Living fabric – Weaving among the Nomads of Ladakh Himalaya (2002), and received the Textile Society of America’s R L Shep award in 2003 for best book in the field of ethnic textile studies. 

As usual this event is free for OATG members, with a small donation required from non-members. Click here for more details and to register.

Man twisting goat hair. ©Monisha Ahmed

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A plethora of new talks and exhibitions!

It was a pleasure to see so many members take part in our recent AGM, and even more so that several of our overseas members were able to present textiles from their collections at the Show and Tell.

February certainly looks like being a busy month with lots of online talks and exhibitions. I’m listing them here in date order, as sadly several of them take place on the same date.

On 20 February there are no less than three online talks that I am aware of! The first of these is hosted by the Textile Museum, with Lawrence Kearney looking at American Coverlets for Rug Lovers. “In this virtual talk, carpet and textile dealer Lawrence Kearney will explore the varied art form of American wool coverlets from 1780 to 1830.

Woollen coverlets from the early 19th century are one of the great American art forms. They are often beautiful, plentiful and affordable. They were made, primarily, by itinerant weavers who travelled throughout New England and the Midwest from c. 1810 through the 1840s. After introducing the four main types of coverlets — over-shot, double-weave, winter-and-summer, and Jacquard-loomed (“figured and fancy”) — Kearney will explore the pleasures these 200-year-old woollen textiles can hold for rug lovers.” Textile Museum website.

Space for this session is limited so you are encouraged to register early.

A woman in Houaphan Province, Laos, models the hand-reeled silk, naturally dyed shaman cloth she wove on her handbuilt loom. ©Above The Fray.

Next is a Zoom Panel presented by WARP (Weave A Real Peace). This will take place at 1300 EST, which is 1800 in the UK. The panel will consist of Gunjan Jain, who “made a conscious switch from working for fast fashion industries to slow, sustainable fashion and set up Vriksh, a design studio that collaborates with handloom weavers in Odisha and other states in India.  Uddipana Goswami …. a feminist peace researcher turned peace entrepreneur who promotes eco-conscious traditional/indigenous crafts from India’s conflict-ravaged Northeast periphery, and Maren Beck, [who with] her husband Joshua founded Above the Fray: Traditional Hill Tribe Art in 2007 in order to document, support, and introduce to the world the incredible traditional textiles arts and cultures of Laos and Vietnam.” Maren and Joshua are the co-authors of Silk Weavers of Hill Tribe Laos. This talk is free, but registration is essential!

If rugs are more your thing then the talk hosted by the New England Rug Society might be for you. This also takes place at 1300 EST on 20 February, when Alberto Levi will speak on Rugs of the Golden Triangle. “While in Tibet in the early ’90s, hunting, in his words, “for the next Seljuk animal carpet,” Alberto Levi “stumbled across an entirely different kind of animal.” In time, what seemed to be a casual encounter yielded a distinct group of carpets, which Alberto labels “Tibetan Golden Triangle.” Far from being Tibetan, this elusive family of rugs, most of them fragmentary, appears to originate from a triangular region defined at its extremes by eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and Northwest Persia. How and why these rugs ended up in Tibet is yet another part of the mystery that Alberto will investigate in his talk. ” NERS Newsletter. NERS members will automatically receive a link. Non-members wishing to attend should email committee member Jean Hoffman to receive theirs.

Temple hanging, artist unknown, Gujarat 20th century

On Monday 22 February the Fowler Museum will host one of its regular Lunch and Learn sessions. Joanna Barrkman, the Fowler’s Senior Curator of Southeast Asia and Pacific Arts, will explore embroidered Jain temple and shrine hangings that offer insights into the religious beliefs and imagery of the Jain faith. This short talk will take place at 1430 PST which is 2230 GMT. Click here to register for this free event.

In addition to all of the above there is also the series of four talks hosted by the Textile Museum Journal that I covered in my previous blog. These are:- Elena Phipps on Brilliance, Colour and the Manipulation of Light in Andean textile Traditions (17th) , Raquel Santos and colleagues on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Asian Textiles in Portuguese Collections (24th) and Walter Denny on Colour, Expectations and Authenticity in Oriental Carpets (26th). The talk by Dominique Cardon on Dyers’ Notebooks in Eighteenth Century England and France, which was scheduled for 10 February has been cancelled. However the good news is that one of Dr Cardon’s co-researchers, Dr Anita Quye, will now take her place for this talk on 10 March instead.

Buddhist robe (kesa), flowers in baskets. Japan, Edo period (1615-1868). Silk and gold brocade. ©Alan Kennedy

Don’t forget that the following day, Saturday 27 February, the Textile Museum Associates of Southern California will host an online talk by Alan Kennedy entitled Kesa: ‘Patchwork’ Buddhist Monks’ Robes in Japan, From Austere to Luxurious. This will take place at 10am Pacific time which is 1800 in the UK. “Kesa is the Japanese word for the traditional patchwork garment worn by Buddhist monks and nuns. These garments are among the earliest documented articles of clothing in Japan, based on inventory records dating to the 8th century. The history of kesa in Japan is of significance for both sacred and secular reasons. They served as a vehicle for both the transmission of Buddhism and of luxury textiles to Japan from the Asian mainland. Kesa that have been preserved in Japan are made of a wide variety of materials, ranging from monochrome bast fibre to sumptuous imported gold brocades. ….. This talk will survey kesa from its earliest history to modern times.” TMA/SC. Registration for this talk is available here.

Ensemble from Southern Moravia in Slovakia (KSUM 1995.17.574 a-e)

A new exhibition opened this week at Kent State University Museum, which will run until 19 December 2021. Entitled Stitched: Regional Dress Across Europe this exhibition showcases common features shared by regional costume across Europe. “In its original context in villages, regional dress carefully marked social and cultural differences. Religious affiliation, gender, age, and marital status were all instantly recognisable at a glance by members of the community. A person’s outfit signalled which village or region they came from. Focusing on these signs of difference obscures the common vocabulary that rural residents across Europe used to shape their clothing. By organising the pieces on display according to shared features, this exhibition highlights the commonalities across the continent rather than their differences. The pieces on view span Western and Eastern Europe including examples from Norway, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Romania and Albania. The development of elaborate regional dress was not a result of the isolation of their wearers but a signal of their integration into broader European society.” KSU website.

Quilt depicting scenes of domestic life and biblical scenes. Created by Minnie Melissa Burdick in 1876. ©Shelburne Museum

The Shelburne Museum in Vermont was the first to exhibit quilts as works of art. Most of the pieces in their collection were produced in New England in the nineteenth century. They recently launched a new online exhibition entitled Pattern and Purpose: American Quilts, which features high-quality images of a selection of their quilts, along with detailed background information on each one. There is also an excellent video in which Katie Wood Kirchhoff previews the exhibition and explains more about the history of the collection and about certain specific quilts. The catalogue of quilt patterns produced by the Ladies Art Company certainly made me smile.

Women’s festive headdress called a shamshur. End of the 19th century Sami, Arkhangel. ©REM

The Russian Museum of Ethnography has a new mini-exhibition which will run until 28 February. The subject is Glass Decor in the Traditional Costume of the Peoples of the Baltic and Barents Regions. The exhibition showcases textiles which are adorned using different types of glass decorations and were made in the second half of the eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The quality of the images is very good, and there is a toggle at the top of the page to change the language to English.

Early 20th century. Leather, satin, silk, wool and metal thread embroidery, weaving tassels. Artisan Saadagul Mademinova, Southern Kyrgyzstan

The ethnographic collection of the Gapar Aitiev Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts is highlighted in this article in Voices on Central Asia. In it Mira Djangaraсheva, the ex-director of the museum, Aigul Mambetkazieva, the chief conservator, and Chinara Daniyarova, a conservator, tell the story of the museum and describe some of its exhibits. The collection currently consists of over 18,000 items, including embroidered wall panels, felts, a fantastic pair of embroidered leather riding trousers and much, much more. Do take a look!

OATG member Sarah Fee, Senior Curator, Global Fashion and Textiles at the Royal Ontario Museum has informed us of the decision to extend the deadline for the IARTS Textiles of India grant until 15 May 2021. This biennial grant of $15,000 CAD “can be used anywhere in the world by anyone in the world toward a project that enhances knowledge about Indian textiles, dress, or costume”. The scope really is very broad, and can include research, fieldwork and creative work. Please click here for full details of how to apply.

Removing the bindings from the warp threads on Savu. ©David Richardson

Don’t forget the February issue of Asian Textiles will be out later this month. Our next online talk will be on 20 March when Genevieve Duggan will speak on People without history in eastern Indonesia, powerful or powerless? This will focus on the island of Savu, where Genevieve has conducted research over several decades. More details in my next blog!

Exhibition: Stories of Migration – Contemporary Artists Interpret Diaspora

Exhibition dates: until 4 September 2016

In Stories of Migration, artists use needle and thread to relate experiences of migration and diaspora. This timely exhibition includes works by forty-four artists, who share personal and universal stories of migration. From historic events that scattered communities across continents to today’s accounts of migrants and refugees adapting to a new homeland.

Invited artists include Hussein Chalayan, Shin-hee Chin, Aino Kajaniemi, Faith Ringgold, Consuelo Jiménez Underwood and William Adjété Wilson.

If you can’t see this exhibition in person, there is a short time-lapse video on the exhibition website, showing artist Consuelo Jiménez Underwood creating her site-specific installation, which recounts her personal experience crossing the US-Mexico border.

For more information, visit the website of the GW Textile Museum, Washington, DC, USA.

Exhibition: Losing the Compass

Exhibition dates: 8 October 2015 – 9 January 2016

The White Cube is pleased to present ‘Losing the Compass’, a group exhibition curated by Scott Cameron Weaver and Mathieu Paris at Mason’s Yard. This exhibition focuses on the rich symbolism of textiles and their political, social and aesthetic significance through art and craft practice. Beginning with the metaphorically charged conceptual work of Alighiero e Boetti, ‘Losing the Compass’ traces the poetic and subversive use of the textile medium through works by Mona Hatoum, Mike Kelley, Sergej Jensen, Sterling Ruby, Rudolf Stingel, Danh Vo and Franz West, wallpaper by nineteenth-century English designer, craftsman and socialist William Morris and a series of quilts made collectively by the Amish and Gee’s Bend communities in the USA during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Contesting traditional notions of authorship, Alighiero e Boetti’s work points to hidden boundaries, whether aesthetic, geographic, economic or political, between the so-called ‘East’ and ‘West’. Working collaboratively with diverse groups from across the globe, and particularly with communities of Afghan women embroiderers, Boetti’s sculptures conflate notions of art and craft and individual expression with that of anonymous production. A selection of canvas embroideries mounted on board from the late 1970s and embroideries from both the 1980s and 1990s spell out phrases such as ‘Il Silenzio è D’oro’, ‘A braccia conserte’ or ‘Perdere la Bussola’, from which the exhibition takes its name, across a grid of colourful squares, combining the political, democratic and rigorous elements of Arte Povera with a dichotomy of order and disorder central to Boetti’s oeuvre.

For more information, visit the website of the White Cube Gallery, London.