2024 Symposium Preliminary Program

Tim Abel “Five Quilts as Claims about Collage, Teaching, Learning & Being Together”

Fafnir Adamites “Felt: Leaning into the Chaotic”

Sareekah Agarwaal “Strands of Repair: Textile Treasures as Sustainable Pathways to Reconnect with the Lost Past”

Almas Ali “Weaving a Sustainable Future: Electrocatalytic Textile Electrodes from Functionalized Nanomaterials”

Isabella Amstrup “Weaving Club”

Karen Baker “Negro Cloth: African American Women Textile Design History”

Kristine Barrett “Inhabiting Numbers: Polyphony as Woven Sound”

Lori Benson and Helena Rojas “Chiapas Maya Project – Weaving Community”

Anna Boutin-Cooper “Weaving Intergenerational Joy: Honoring Ancestral Legacy with ‘Grandma’s Placemats’”

Elena Brebenel “Connections: found, applied and restored”

Amanda Briggs-Goode and Susanne Seymour “Reframing Nottingham Lace: Global connections and material journeys”

Sarah Brown “‘We’re not leaving the mat weaving’: Transitions of craft practice in southeast Madagascar”

Jennifer Byram and Eveline Steele “Plying Together Knowledges: Revitalization of Indigenous Textile Knowledge through Language”

Stephanie Caruso, Isaac Facio, and Giovanni Verri “Late Antique Textiles From Egypt: Shifting Perceptions In Their Lives And Afterlives”

Farrah Cato and Prerana Choudhury “Weaving Community: The Manual Loom as Metaphor for Rupture and Repair”

Dr. Manpreet Chahal and Deepti Raj “An Attempt Towards Skilling Persons with Visual Impairment in Macrame Technique Using Post-Consumer Textile Waste”

Chloe Chapin “Linen Shifts to Cotton Shirts: material, manufacture, and racial symbolism in 19th century America”

Susanne Cockrell “Threading a Long View: The San Juan Ridge Tapestry Project”

Maria Ida De Ioanni “Incursive Heritage and Textile Practices: New Forms of Gathering and Preserving Knowledges”

Joanna Dermenjian “Quilting Community in Wartime Canada”

Joanna Dermenjian “Art Across International Borders – Quilters in Canada execute designs by LA Artists for Art Exhibit”

Idowu Diyaolu “Strands and Shifts: The Africa-China Textile Trade and Cultural Sustainability”

Doris Domoszlai-Lantner “Digital Textiles: Assessing the Promise of a More Sustainable Future”

Amy Dorie “Burning Fear”

Theresa Downing “The Touch and Breath of Cloth: Folding and Unfolding Bedsheets with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons”

John Fifield-Perez “Queer Horizons and Love Letters in the Archive”

Cynthia Fowler “The Influence of Textiles on the Paintings of Maurice Prendergast”

Maggy Fragoso “A contribution to the preservation and revival of the Cabo Verdean pano d’obra textiles”

Jessie Fraser “Till the Tide: affective movement in site-specific installation”

Ann Frisina “An Origin Story: Creating the Minnesota Historical Society Costume Collection 1920-1974”

Smrti Ganesan and Nishanth Srikanth “Textile ways of thinking as a trauma-informed design tool to research and understand communities”

Wafa Ghnaim “Thobe as Life: Preserving Biographies, Stories & Land in Palestinian Dress”

Chavi Goyal and Suman Pant “A Study of Amdo Women Costume Costume of Tibet in Exile and Designing Indowestern Garments”

Jennifer Green and Rhonda Ferguson “From Soil and Place: the Flaxmobile Project and the cultivation of a local textile ecology”

Elle Loui August and Jane Groufsky “The Interlacing Threads: Margery Blackman connecting communities and contexts”

Dr. Simple Bahl, Ashima Gupta, and Dr. Vandana, and “Draped in History: Unveiling Vijayanagar’s Social Tapestry through Lepakshi Portrayals”

Laurin Guthrie “Crafting National Identity: The Parallels Between Aran Sweaters and Appalachian Coverlets”

Saiful Bakhri, Chris Buckley, Kristal Hale, Absari Hanifah, and Sandra Sardjono “Conservation and Repatriation of Textiles”

Joan Hart “Queen Victoria, the Sultan, the Adventurer: Weaving Strands of the History of Kashmir Shawls”

Julie Hollenbach “Unmaking/Remaking Bodies and Worlds: Textiles as Situated Practice”

Marilyn Emerson Holtzer “Pieces of Eight: Diagonal Color Stripes on Eight-Hole Tablets”

Nia Fliam and Agus Ismoyo Isnugroho “Unveiling the Deeper Meaning: The Artistic Process of Batik in Indonesian Culture”

Sanniah Jabeen “The Handmade Ajrak in the Age of Mass (Re)Production”

Suzanna James “Caring Cloth”

Laura Johnson “’Within the reach of everyone’ Tracing the global strands of Herrman, Sternbach & Co’s imitation furs”

Jess Jones “Lost Weavings of Atlanta: Plying the Past and Present”

Elena Kanagy-Loux “’Muy Curiosa y Muy Diestra’: Bobbin Lace Making in Eighteenth-Century Mexico”

Miwa 美和  Kanetani 金谷 and Makoto Shibata “Material Environment to Sustain Traditional Textile: Wisteria Weaving in Kyoto, Japan”

Harita Kapur “Ecological Design Thinking: Re-designing and re-envisioning design cultures”

Judit Eszter Kárpáti and Esteban de la Torre “Dung Dkar Cloak – Exploring Soft Interfaces for Sonic Interactions”

Judit Eszter Kárpáti and Esteban de la Torre “Material Sentience – Crossmodal Textile Interactions”

Heather Kerley 2”3 Extinct Redwork Quilt Project: Repairing Relationships with our More-Than-Human Kin, Stitch by Stich”

Celine Khawam “Henri de Châtillon (1906-1972): A French Émigré Milliner In Mexico City”

Dharmendra Bana and Rajesh Kumar “Stitches of Sustainability: Empowering Women and Preserving Culture through Pakko Embroidery”

Alysha Kupferer “Refashioning History: A framework for studying systems of dress in response to textile technologies”

Mariah Kupfner “Many Hands: White Womanhood, Enslaved Labor, and the Myth of the Individual Maker”

Danielle Anastasia Lasker “Textile Resource Center: On Generosity and Growth of the Collection”

Markia Liapi “Tactility and historicity in contemporary textile art: the Greek example”

Nisaphi Lahun Lyndem “Exploring the development of the Loin Loom, Materials and Motifs in Naga textiles”

Katie Coughlin and Cat Mailloux “Hand to Ear: Collaborating Through Textiles”

Sydney Maresca “’Coats Woven of Turkie-feathers’: Indigenous Featherwork Mantles in the Seventeenth-Century American Northeast”

Rebecca McNamara “’What was before’: Lenore Tawney and Her Circle, 1950–1963”

Liz Miller “Hair Sculpting: The Fine Art Inter-disciplinary Modalities of Hair as an Art form”

Sarah Mills “Industrial Weaving in Art Museums: A Catalyst of American Fiber Art”

Isabel Monseau “Copyright for Imitations: Looking at the Registered Design Book of William Stirling and Sons”

Lucy Mugambi “Fostering Interconnectedness Among Diverse Students Through Rag Weaving in a Schools setting in Kenya”

Mariko Nagai “Public Patriotism, Silent Dissent: Women and the Making of Senninbari in Wartime Japan”

Katya Oicherman “Textile as Cultural Technology: The Evolution of Robert Rauschenberg’s Jammers, 1975-6”

Keiko 慶子 Okamoto 岡本 “Bridging Traditions and Innovations in Japanese Kimono Fashion -after WWII to the present-“

Elizabeth Okeyele-Olatunji “Effect of project based learning on Achievement pupils in lekki schools,Lagos state”

Melanie Olde “Woven Life Systems”

Boiso Owodiong-Idemeko “Perception and Prospects of Art of Clothing Maintenance as a sustainable Fashion”

Gizem Oz “Local Crafts, Local Places: Weaving as a Place-making Activity”

Kadi Pajupuu “MultiWeave. Ambitions and inspirations”

Khamal Patterson “Kite Tales: The Strings That Connect and Cut”

Alexandra Peck “Fungal Fibers/’Coyote’s Braids’: Ingenious Indigenous Manufacture of Mycological Textiles in the Pacific Northwest”

Lucinda Pelton “The Material Life of a Jiangyi (Taoist priest vestment): 18th Century to the Present”

Brielle Pizzala “Weaving Modernity: Silk Tapestries in the Nanjing Decade”

Janet Pollock “The Stamina of Things: Jean Toury’s Nightshirt”

Nallely Rangel Vázquez “A city between fibers, threads, textiles and seamstresses: establishments in Mexico City (1900-1910)”

Kelly Reddy-Best “Queer and Trans Fashion Brands: An Ethical Balancing Act in Production and Pricing”

Lesley Roberts “Speculative Futures with Fibershed”

Theda Sandiford “Free Your Mind: A Social Justice Public Art Project”

Etta Sandry “Inconclusive Objects: Sample Making as Inquiry-Driven Practice”

Karen Selk “Wild Silk: Repairing and Healing our Planet and Social Fabric”

Nikita Shah “Fursat: Crafting Community, Rest, and Care Through Textiles”

Anou Singhvi “LOST & LOOTED – The Fate Of Bejeweled Textiles And Gemstone Carpets Of India”

Astri Snodgrass “Artist Talk: The Memory of the Fingers”

Rajni Srivastava “Application of Natural Resources and Indigenous Knowledge on Textile Materials: A Sustainable Design Approach”

Katherine Narter, Anna Stuffelbeam, and Janie Woodbridge “Weaving Transformations: Integrating the TC2 Loom in Higher Education Textile Programs”

Emilela Thomas-Adams “The Art of Care: Repair and Recycling in a Late Medieval Convent”

Tomoko Torimaru “A Study of ‘Kurar’: Its historical and cultural significance to the Kingdom of Bahrain”

Nidia Trejo “Environmental Legacy: Superfund Sites in the Apparel and Footwear Supply Chain”

Angela Becerril and Helen Trejo “Solidarity Dividend with US Wool and Community Engagement to Address Socioeconomic Inequities”

Ambika Magotra and Vidushi Vashishtha “Revival of Age-Old Traditional Indian Mending Techniques for Preservation and Conservation of Textiles”

Mercy Wanduara “Experimentation on Manual Paper Making Using Mango Seed Fibers”

Emily Whitted “Re-examining the Darning Sampler: Imagined Textile Repair in Early America”

Emma C. Wingfield “Mapping Interconnected Threads: Contemporary Dioula Handwoven Cloth, Motif Development, and Creativity in Côte d’Ivoire 1970-2023”

Yan Yan “The embodied moral order of Li brocade: from generation, fragmentation, to continuity”

Hua Yang “Archiving community, a case study of Textile Art Center in Brooklyn”

Qianwen Yu “Music in the Loom: Tracing the Transdisciplinary Journey of Weaving and Musical Composition”

Alexis Zoto “Lavenz, Valenz, Lavexha, Lavenzka : Woven felted blankets from the Korçë region in Southeastern Albania”

Indian traditional embroidery, a rich cloth of artistry and cultural expression, has undergone significant shifts over time, mirroring the dynamic socio-cultural landscapes of the Indian subcontinent. Deeply embedded in the nation’s heritage, needlework has evolved in response to changing influences, trade routes, and technological advancements.

The skills, motifs, stitches, patterning, and symbolism that enriched the diversity of Indian embroidery styles continue to evolve. Despite threats from fast fashion, digital embroidery and AI, professional embroidered goods are made for trade and consumption in the professional karkhanas as well as at home workshops alike. While artisans continue to preserve age-old techniques, contemporary influences have led to innovative adaptations. Designers now experiment with unconventional materials, colors, and motifs, giving traditional embroidery a modern twist that resonates with both Indian and international audiences.

This session will explore three embroideries from India namely the phulkari folk embroidery of Punjab, the embroidery of the wandering lambani tribal members, and the royal zardozi embroidery of Bhopal. Indian embroidery goes beyond fabric—it weaves stories, traditions, and cultural identities, all encoded in its intricate stitches and embellishments. Using the lens of semiotics the session will delve into the fascinating world of Indian embroidery and its hidden language.

Be it folk, tribal or trade embroidery, the stitches these women create are for economic well-being as well as a means to communicate their stories. The session investigates embroidery for empowerment and emotional well-being. Each strand embeds aspirations and dreams of the women engaged in the various embroidery forms. The papers examine the shifts in Indian traditional embroidery over the centuries due to migrations, invasions and now globalization which are a testament to its interconnectedness, resilience, and adaptability. This session looks to bring forth the voices of the artisan of these embroideries in coping with the shifts and its effect on the strands.

“Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame, 1960–2000,” is a project examining the explosion of innovative textile-based art on the Canadian prairies during the second half of the twentieth century. Focusing on weaving and other interlace practices, such as rug hooking and crochet, the project critically interrogates how artists of diverse backgrounds wove new histories of fibre during a period of intense energy and collective creativity. It has endeavoured to recover and record what craft historian Tanya Harrod terms ‘lost modernisms’ connected with craft processes and the objects made largely by Prairie women, newcomers, and Indigenous artists. “Prairie Interlace” has recovered and continues to recover and restore a distinct history through the interconnected narratives of art, craft, feminism, immigration, Indigeneity, regionalism, and architectural interior design.

This panel will pick up and interweave even more of the “Prairie Interlace” project threads by contributing directly to rethinking the possibilities of Canadian fibre arts, wall hangings and architectural textiles from the second half of the 20th century, specifically through the sub-themes of “strands” and “shifts.” Reflecting on and extending the strands of research begun with “Prairie Interlace”, it will reframe understandings of late modern and early postmodern Canadian fibre arts. We seek to feature new research into architectural textile-based art in Canada; add depth and nuance to some regional histories of textiles and place; problematize textile/ceramic history in Saskatchewan; and reflect on the curatorial premises that shaped and ultimately delimited “Prairie Interlace”. The panel will explore hidden histories, muted voices, and alternative understandings, enriching not only the discourse of Canadian textile history, but—critically—its production.

The Thread Controller 2 (TC2) loom is a novel technology that has reshaped how artists and designers explore the technical intricacies in jacquard weaving and harness textiles for creative expression. In this presentation, we discuss the integration of the TC2 within higher education art and design programs across the United States. Our research aims to explore the complexities and opportunities presented by the TC2 loom from both educator and student perspectives. The integration of this unique technology emphasizes the need for adaptation and innovation in pedagogical approaches. 

In this two-part presentation, we first discuss the results of a qualitative study that involved surveying educators and interviewing students who work with a TC2 loom in higher education settings. We then highlight instances of innovative approaches in teaching methods for the TC2 loom, as well as examples of rigorous student experimentation. By shedding light on successes, challenges, and future outlooks, our research contributes to the ongoing dialogue surrounding the reimagining of textiles in higher education.

In preparation of a renewed permanent lace exhibit at the Taxandria Museum in Turnhout (Belgium), Musea Turnhout initiated in September 2023 historical research into the commercial production of lace during the 19th and 20th century in Turnhout (Belgium).

Simultaneously Musea Turnhout initiated a lace registration project in collaboration with 12 trained museum volunteers – including local lacemakers. 

The objective of this registration project was to inform historical research, develop lace registration methodologies, extract material (meta)data through citizen science and make part of Musea Turnhout’s lace collection digitally accessible to the general public, researchers and academics via the online databank www.erfgoedinzicht.be (Dutch only).

This collection includes over 18 000 lace related objects: from bobbins, lace cushions, threads and needles to design drawings, prickings, rubbings, blueprints, photographs, samples, sample books, garments, headwear and lacework. This registration project focused on the measuring, labeling, photographing, describing and (re)packaging of unregistered regional Flemish bobbin lace including 17th century lace and Belgian War Lace (WWI).

The renewed permanent exhibit (opening 2025) aims to shed light on the social history of Turnhout’s lacemaking industry during the 19th and 20th century, its working conditions and the lacemakers behind this luxury textile. It also aims to showcase the material culture present in the museum’s collection evidencing these histories.

Narrative Threads is a new digital initiative from the Textile Society of America (TSA) that aims to build a platform for investigating and sharing knowledge that transforms our field to be more inclusive. Contributors are invited to focus on one textile concept (a term, practice, genre, etc.) and untangle its under-explored histories, meanings, and politics. We particularly aim to highlight concepts that showcase regionally interconnected histories of practice, exchange, and transmission. These written contributions are enhanced through various media (images, videos, animation, etc.) to create experimental presentations aimed at fostering greater public engagement through multimodal learning strategies.

 Crucially, Narrative Threads does not aim to provide an exhaustive glossary of terms or establish singular definitions, but instead seeks to open up concepts that raise productive connections and ethical provocations about the uses and values of textiles across the world’s societies. In line with the TSA’s social justice commitments, we particularly aim to curate contributions that elucidate pathways toward greater global equity and gender and racial justice. 

This hybrid “organized session” and “panel discussion” is a means to kickstart the initiative. First, members of the Core Team will give an overview of the project. Then participants will give three presentations on key ideas. After the presentations, a moderated panel will further draw out the stakes and issues of the project. We invite feedback on the individual papers and projects as a whole and will allow attendees to nominate themselves for a future contribution.

Sub-Saharan Africa is routinely absent in works on global “silk roads”. One reason for neglect lies in the fact that few pre-modern textiles from the subcontinent survive. But there is an important exception: early modern Ethiopian Christian manuscripts. The makers of these manuscripts often inserted square swatches of imported cloth (‘pastedowns’) into the inner covers, providing a virtually unstudied repository of material evidence for Ethiopia’s patronage of foreign textiles and its wide-reaching geographical connections in the early modern era. Since 2022, an international multidisciplinary team headquartered at the University of Toronto has located and begun the study of over 2000 fragments. Members include textile scholars, art historians, historians, codicologists, philologists and practitioners based in North America, Europe and Ethiopia. In this panel, four members of the team will report on initial findings, and what they reveal of Ethiopian culture, history, economy, foreign diplomacy, global connections, the arts, and the making and meanings of Ethiopian manuscripts. To date, the team has determined that the silk and cotton cloths used by Ethiopian manuscript makers originated from China, India, Iran, Britain, France, Italy, Syria, Turkey and beyond; some date to the late 15th century, and there is growing evidence for a distinct Ethiopian patronage or ‘taste’. Textual evidence supports these distant origins, and further reveals that Ethiopian agents and actors (diplomats, merchants, buying agents, pilgrims) pro-actively traveled long-distances to acquire some of these foreign textiles. Beyond Ethiopia, this wide range of imported fabrics offers an as-yet untapped source for the study of textile products and trade networks in the early modern era, especially with India, during an extended period when textiles drove the global economy.

In an era where generative AI reshapes creative boundaries,we propose an exploration into how textile designers can harness this technology amidst the prevalence of archetypal constructs. Our presentation will dissect the complexities of AI datasets—often mired in colonial and stereotypical narratives—and elucidate strategies for ‘hacking’ these systems to elevate textile creation. We’ll uncover and research  methods for decoding the metadata of descriptors and sequencing references, fostering an awareness that transcends traditional data limitations. This session will highlight the synthesis of generative AI with a deep-rooted understanding of cultural aesthetics and ethical practices, culminating in a framework for textile designers to navigate and innovate within this transformative digital landscape. 

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities experience mental health disparities due to racial inequity, socioeconomic disadvantage, and cultural bias. Textile craft-making activities, such as repurposing, knitting, crocheting, and quilting, offer a promising avenue for promoting positive mental health outcomes. This study investigates how these activities impact mental health among BIPOC individuals. Participants in three focus groups discussed their subjective experiences and perceptions of textile crafts and the effects on their mental health.

The participants reported experiencing joy, satisfaction, and accomplishment alongside frustration and anxiety. The data revealed engaging in textile crafts fostered a therapeutic outlet for self-expression and creativity while enhancing well-being. These findings contribute to discourse on the intersection of textiles, crafts, and mental health within BIPOC communities.

Textile craft activities foster a shift for greater resilience and well-being and embrace uncertainty and experimentation for participants.  Centering on repair, these practices mend the social fabric, recover traditions, and promote self-determination. Collaborations with communities and textile workers further explore the evolving landscape of textile craft activities within BIPOC communities, emphasizing their potential for social change and environmental justice.

Future research will investigate sustained participation in textile craft activities and their impact on overall well-being. Creative interventions can thus promote holistic well-being and resilience, illuminating the positive effects of textile craft activities on mental health outcomes.

Textiles are highly mobile objects. Historic textiles now in museums have usually traveled across time and space, moving between owners. As textile studies developed as a discipline in Western Europe and North America, its many fields adopted different standards for ownership-history–or provenance–research. As such, present-day textile researchers do not have a clear set of guidelines for engaging with provenance, although provenance research is increasingly recognized as crucially important. For researchers working on the pre-contact Americas and medieval Central Asia, provenance research may be necessary to avoid participating in ongoing illegal excavation. For those working with collections in religious and historic institutions, provenance research may help establish patterns of donation and regimes of value. For some museums, provenance research has become a way of grappling with the legacies of historic power imbalances, in which deep-pocketed institutions acquired goods from across the world, many without clear ownership histories. The panelists will discuss the importance and nature of provenance research and publishing in their own fields, bringing a wide-range of expertise to the roundtable. The discussion will also highlight shifts in scholarly and institutional culture over the past decade and the need to reassess traditional frameworks for textile studies.

Sharing memories is what forms the fabric of human life.  Remembering gives the past a place in the present, offering continuity and meaning to our lives.  Increasingly, artists, educators and cultural workers are focusing on mending and repair as a powerful metaphor for storytelling, activism, grief, remembering  and healing.  In this sense, the needle has been a powerful tool to articulate an ethics of care in a world where carelessness reigns.

Exploring the sewing needle, Bryan-Wilson argues that the needle can enact a slow and quiet form of activism creating havoc in upending political and social structures.  The increasing demand for repair and mending spaces is a testament to needle methodologies to “look at damage and decay in the eye and construct new orders.” Exploring the relationship between mending and communities, Blades argues that mending connects you to history, community and stories for healing. 

This panel is a conversation between scholars, artists and art therapists about the role fiber arts has played in questions about mending and repair; how the needle has become a tool to articulate an ethics of care in a world where carelessness reigns;  stitching, doing and undoing as a response to mending, caring and remembrance; and what role the needle has played in storytelling about “care and repair” as embodied in fabrics to envision what needs to change systematically and geopolitically. 

The Hinabi Project (THP) is a trans-Pacific nonprofit based in San Francisco dedicated to the promotion, preservation, and practice of the Philippine weaving arts in sustainably sourced fiber. THP educates and fosters an appreciation for indigenous and local textiles and embroidery by organizing exhibits and events to support aging weaving communities and train younger weavers. Handloom weaving is a nationwide cultural tradition in the Philippines that dates back to the thirteenth century. Customary sources used for fiber are cotton, abaca, and pineapple, and silk, although cotton is now in very short supply. Patterns and colors are usually an expression of spiritual and cultural beliefs, with specific motifs for harvest, protection, and war, for instance, and earth colors or death. THP does not only collect antique textiles for public display and education. They also commission new works from master weavers in the Philippines, presenting them with contemporary designs that are still respectful of traditional weaving practice. As these weaves travel through different homes, they accumulate additional values and biographies embedded in a transnational context. These diasporic objects, both traditional and contemporary, reproduce memories of the homeland for many Filipinos who see them, in a process of personalization and re-appropriation that may be added to other remembrances of cuisine and music, for instance. However, there are many challenges that THP faces in embracing the circularity of woven and embroidered textiles from the community of production to the new place of residence. The panelists will speak to the subthemes of shifts, strands, ruptures, and repair. A collector will explain how a deep knowledge of histories is essential, in a country with over 100 ethnolinguistic groups. A fashion designer will talk about fabric innovation, a necessary pivot in changing environments. A museum associate will talk about stewardship of native materials by a dominant Western culture.

Using two recent textile exhibitions to anchor this discussion, Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles (Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, 2023–2025) and Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest (Bard Graduate Center Gallery, New York, 2023), this panel considers how collaboration is developed and enacted in museum practice. Each exhibition places historic textile collections in conversation with contemporary works to explore previously overlooked artistic expressions. We center the contributions and innovations of Diné artists, even when the makers remain unidentified, and feature reinterpretations of these works by leading Diné weavers, scholars, and cultural practitioners. The panel presents a curatorial framework for thinking about the culture of creativity that reflects and inspires Diné weaving, both historically and into the present, to bring a more holistic, diverse, and inclusive approach to the study of textile arts.

By exploring the ways in which collaborative methodologies can expand, transform, and shift museum practice, we invite audience members into the conversation to creatively imagine how this framework can be applied within other institutional contexts and venues.

Following the Indo-Pak conflict of 1971, Hindu refugees from the Meghwaad Maaru and Sodha communities in Pakistan were interned in Zura camp, in the desert district of Kutch, Gujarat. Denied free movement and unable to work, they were offered a lifeline by the Shrujan Trust, an NGO that specialised in working with women and income-generation through sales of embroidered goods. Soof, the distinctive counted thread embroidery made by the refugee women, became a medium of survival and empowerment, and fifty years on is a highly respected art form. Our panel traces its trajectory and that of Shrujan from the aftermath of conflict to the present-day.

North American Linen Association (NALA) has assembled a diverse group from different backgrounds so that they can give their perspective from their experience and focus. There are farmers, academics, and artisans, all with a different focus in a united goal of creating a North American Linen industry.

The two main themes would be ruptures and repair.

The first questions will revolve around the notion of rupturing with the existing European industry. Is it possible? Is there an opportunity to do things differently? Is it possible to be completely independent? If things can be kept, what should be kept? If things are broken, or unsuitable, how can we ensure that we do not become that in the future?

The second theme will cover the theme of repair and will broadly explore the following problem. We, who are involved in the sustainable textile movement are in a bit of a bubble. We all agree with each other, and want to achieve the same things. The problem is this. Is it more beneficial to our movement, and to the planet to serve our community, or to broaden it and reach others? 

Here is a practical example. Which has more impact? Expanding the fibershed movement, and bringing on more small producers? Or convincing the major producers to do better, and practice a more sustainable form of agriculture?

NALA is a 501(c)6 trade group with the explicit mandate “to advance sustainability and resilience in the organic agriculture, bast fiber, textile and fashion industries.” 

Each individual, as well as each business involved are known for their ESG policies, whether they be sustainability initiatives or diversity and inclusion policies, or both.

Current production practices in the textile industry favor power and profit over the well-being of people and place. This results in the cultural devaluation of people and the environmental destruction of place. While many are raising awareness of the need to counter current textile production practices to focus on ethics, sustainability, and transparency, very few companies truly do the development work to establish a textile company that empowers people in their cultures, returns to natural fibers, shows responsibility for animals and environment, and provides transparency in production. Going against the status quo to build such a company often faces system inherent roadblocks. What are these roadblocks and how are three small companies in Central Asia working to overcome them?

This panel brings together these company founder/directors for discussion: •Sy Belohlavek of Kyrgyz Cashmere, Kyrgyzstan •Preston Thiessenof Dinadi, Nepal •Theresa VanderMeer of Work + Shelter, India.

Topics to be discussed: Terminology Words matter. How are these terms defined within the reality of development projects: Ethics, sustainability, and transparency? What are the current industry methods of measurement and verification for these areas? Do the current methods work for small companies? Social impact People matter. Each of these companies exists to empower the people and culture in their countries of operation. How do the companies lean into textile traditions to shape the future local economy? How does fair pay contribute to self-determination of participants? Sustainability and transparency Environment matters. How does each company approach sustainability and transparency? What traditions and knowledge are restored and/or gained by local participants? Roadblocks What local governance issues impede ethics, sustainability, and transparency in textile development? How do products that come out of these companies compete in a fast fashion, mass-production world?

Once work begins on revitalizing Indigenous textile traditions, what comes next? This panel will discuss the ongoing process of reawakening textile traditions based on the experience of five weavers from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma who have worked collaboratively on Southeast North American Indigenous textiles since 2018. Each participant has engaged in research, experimentation, and outreach on textiles from a different angle and brings perspectives on innovation and teaching. Previous textile work by this group has included the creation of a bison-dogbane twined skirt based on an 18th-century description of Choctaw clothing as well as the creation of twined garments and accessories for inclusion in museum and movie set contexts. We invite audience members to share their experiences with revitalization and collaboration and to join us in discussing this process. How do we reintegrate weaving practices that have been set aside by Indigenous communities due to the pressures of colonization, removal, difficulties accessing resources, and diaspora? What are the challenges to researching and educating on Indigenous textiles in communities? What is the future and role of ‘traditional’ textiles among Indigenous nations?

The sewing machine has a rich history that spans more than two hundred years, and has revolutionized the textile and garment industries. During this time span, the sewing machine has continued to evolve, with new technologies and innovations making it faster, more efficient, and easier to use. One of the most striking aspects of the sewing machine is its ability to outpace the human hand, taking on the laborious task of stitching with speed and precision, qualities which presaged the assembly lines and mechanization of labor that were to be the hallmarks of the Industrial Revolution. Eventually the sewing machine made its way into the domestic arena, and played an important role for women in reclaiming and redefining the space of the home as a site of creativity and empowerment. Today, sewing machines are a ubiquitous household appliance found in homes around the world, and they continue to play a vital role in domestic craft.

In this panel discussion we will discuss how the sewing machine is used in contemporary art practice. We will delve into how artists are using the sewing machine to blur the boundaries between fashion, art, and craft to explore themes of plurality, collaboration, and community. We will question traditional ideas of what is possible with this versatile tool that has long been used in both art and craft. The sewing machine holds a unique position in contemporary art practice, serving as a powerful tool for exploring the complex relationship between the body, clothing, and identity.

Over the next six months, two Art Institute of Chicago staff members – Gaby Lavalle (Tour Specialist), and Lois Taylor Biggs (Rice Curatorial Fellow in Native American Art) – will consider weaving as a dynamic framework for experiencing gallery spaces and co-creating meaning with visitors. In fall 2024 we will host an in-gallery, community-centered program with facilitation and prompts from Latin American and Indigenous textile artists and activists. We will also collaborate with local and international artists. This roundtable conversation with facilitators and participants from the program will reflect on our experience and how weaving might offer a transformative framework for in-gallery learning. Through these gatherings, we hope to draw out strands between textile artworks in the AIC collection, contemporary artists, and Chicago communities.

After weaving on different looms using simple and complex techniques (tapestry to 4-harness to Jacquard), I discovered a new shift in weaving. In 2023, I participated in an artist residency with the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. A requirement was to create a project, event, or exhibition relevant to climate change, the environment and/or global warming. My proposal for this residency included a woven piece I created in 2023 – a small tapestry with natural fibers (jute, cotton, wool, raffia, twigs, roving, feathers, leather, birch bark and Spanish moss). As I was weaving, I kept hearing news of wildfires. I remembered when my father fought forest fires when I was a child. It occurred to me that I could scorch the woven piece as a reaction to wildfires. This was a huge shift and transformation for me since I have never harmed my woven pieces. I held the piece over a small fire and scorched one section, calling it “Burnt Earth.” This became the catalyst for Branch Out and Weave for Climate Change (BOWCC). I had 12 participants for the BOWCC workshop, weaving on branches with natural fibers (listed above). The natural fibers are symbolic of wildfire habitat of flora and fauna. After weaving, the branches were set on fire and scorched over a fire pit. The process was filmed and will become part of an exhibition. This project brings awareness of climate change, helping to shift our idea of weaving by recycling dead branches as looms for weaving!

On July 3, 1992, the Government of Canada announced a moratorium on the fishing of Northern Cod in the waters surrounding the island of Newfoundland. Cod is so central to the island’s economy, history, and mythology that Newfoundlanders simply call it “fish”; “making fish” is the term for the process of covering the fish in salt and drying it out on large platforms called flakes, and the catching, making, and shipping of fish was the people of the island’s primary occupation until late in the twentieth century.

When, in 2014, I first cut pieces of fabric into the triangular shapes of a salted cod split, I was making quilt appliques for an anniversary gift for my parents and had in mind potential ornaments for my Christmas tree, or, more ambitiously, a garland: I left Newfoundland in 1997 and have long tried to reckon with the hold the place has on my heart. The repetitive gestures of cutting and stitching actively engaged me with my ancestors who wove their own fishing nets to catch and make fish and who were terribly exploited by the truck system that kept them impoverished despite their labour. I knew as well that cod could not escape its association with colonialism: it was sent to the West Indies in exchange for molasses and rum in a system built on the horrific violence of slavery. With the moratorium, cod was also a canary in the coal mine of resource extraction’s role in the climate crisis.

The fish took on still new meaning when my beloved uncle, the last commercial fisherman in the family, and who had patiently taken me on many an early morning cod jig during what became known as the food fishery post-moratorium, passed away in the spring of 2021. With his passing, it felt as though the last thread to that life was cut. My own children have no interest in eating salt cod, so with the fear of a disappearing culinary tradition, I decided to make more permanent fish as a multifaceted memorial and connection to their heritage. My presentation involves research into textile predecessors of my own work and the evolution of my practice from an ornament of nostalgia to an art project.

In my Handwoven Drawings series, I developed an innovative method that unifies drawing and weaving. I draw and paint on the surface of soft wood, hand cut the wood into thin strips, and then weave the painted strips back together on a floor loom. The Handwoven Drawings teeter between drawing and textile and defy strict categorization.  The drawing on wood could be thought of as traditional cartoons that instead of guiding a tapestry become the textile itself.  The horizontal cuts across the wood articulate lines of weft undulating across the work creating a new sensibility within a woven structure and a drawing.  The warp intersects the drawing superimposing its structure becoming three dimensional marks.  I am both the drawer and the weaver collapsing the distinction of designer and maker.  The textile is both hard and flexible and can withstand gravity becoming architectural at times. The process of making becomes metaphorical.  There is the creation of the drawing, its destruction when it is cut up, and finally its reintegration when woven back together on the loom.  A new structure emerges:  a dynamic unification of drawing and thread, the Handwoven Drawings.

Whoever said money can’t solve your problems Must not have had enough money to solve ’em -Ariana Grande, c. 21st century

Architecture, interior decor, and fashion influence our psychology, our identity, and our cultural values. My creative research in weaving features architecture décor and fashion with symbolic flowers, laurels, and cornucopias, illustrative motifs that culturally represent wealth, prestige, and power. I hand weave on a Thread Controller 2 (TC2) digital Jacquard loom, which uses the binary system principle to all woven structures and digital images. I weave in a banner scale that relates to both human scale and architecture, interfacing and obstructing one another. Weave structures are designed to visually constitute a digital image that manipulates and repeats. I erode the soft and patterned surface of cloth, the digital image, and architecture, marking with materials often used to clean and preserve or destroy and vandalize the surface of architecture and cloth. The structure of the weave and its drape influences how paint, ink, bleach, and dye mark the surface. 

In Andrew Bolton’s exhibition essay Manis – Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, he describes how, “The practice and stature of haute couture was sustained by hand skills that spoke of mastery, subtlety, etiquette, and refinement… the intrinsic difference between haute couture and mass-produced ready-to-wear fashion has always been between the custom made and the ready-made. Traditionally, the hand had been identified with exclusivity, spontaneity, and individuality. Yet, alternatively as representative of elitism, the cult of personality, and a detrimental nostalgia for past craftspersonship. Similarly, the machine has been understood to signify progress, democracy, and mass production but also inferiority, dehumanization, and homogenization.” My creative research considers the dialectical relationship in which the hand and machine are portrayed as discordant instruments. I mirror, repeat, reverse, and flip the weave pattern. Considering the intrinsic difference between haute couture and mass-produced ready-to-wear fashion, I utilize tapestry techniques, and hand finishing techniques including knotting and macramé.

Bibliography 

“Ariana Grande – 7 Rings (Official Video),” YouTube, January 18, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYh6mYIJG2Y.

Andrew Bolton and Nicholas Alan Cope, Manus X Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016).

“Weaving Rituals for Resistance” explores the tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, as an immersive and transformative experience. Since 2022, I have researched the historical development, making practices, and use of tallit, examining its intersections with gender, sexuality, and power. Traditionally, tallit are worn by men; that is changing. There is no one way to feel about wearing tallit, but many share that they feel safe, protected and held.

My presentation will briefly cover the tallit’s history, textual sources for design and use, and biblical materials. As a weaver, I aim to empower queer individuals to create tallitot, adding our experiences to their rich history as ritual objects. Drawing from my background in digital and new media art, I think of tallit as an experiential space. Much like wearers of tallitot, visitors of immersive art installations hope to be transported and transformed.

A tallit can be a portable safe space, a protection ritual for healing one’s nervous system and creating tallitot can nurture marginalized communities, bridging ancient rituals with contemporary needs. I will share my journey of creating my own tallit, explore the object’s evolving meanings, and discuss its potential in empowering diverse communities.

My desire is to write without the words. To communicate the same intention, emotion, tempo, narrative, joy, frustration, … with thread and colour. To write without words, I weave asemic script in the weft. Materials and their transformation speak on their own. There is never a single definition. 

There is a playful reuse, and blurring, of materials, much like the minimal confusion of living in another language. Infinite loops of translation, material repurposing, online translators, print and trace, deepen knowledge. This, until one arrives at knowing so well, that there are no longer any words.

Simultaneous craft mediums, materials and techniques, blurring themselves, boundaryless. Weaving has become one of the languages that I mingle with the others, those that were always mixed. Weaving notation is the chosen system to imagine 3D writing systems that account for multiple languages at a time. 

A conversation exploring the curation and impact of the show Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles on view at the Barbican Gallery, London 13 February – 26 May 2024. The discussion between Unravel curators Lotte Johnson and Wells Fray-Smith, and Dr Christine Checinska Lead Curator of the V&A  international touring show ‘Africa Fashion,’ will explore the show’s legacy and the convergence between their ongoing engagement with contemporary textiles and fibre art.

“Through Palestinian embroidery and its promotion, we keep a candle in the window” -Leila el Khalidi

Al-Nakba, “the catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the establishment of Israel in Palestine that ethnically cleansed and forcibly displaced more than 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes, depopulating hundreds of Palestinian villages between late 1947 and early 1949. For Palestinians, al-Nakba remains an ongoing and unrelenting ordeal. In an art historical context, Palestinian dispossession, displacement, and exile significantly changed tatreez (embroidery) and dressmaking traditions. Women found themselves displaced, homeless or widowed–in refugee camps and under utterly different economic and political circumstances–adopting new approaches to dressmaking that carried on the centuries-old tradition of
tatreez. The thobe (dress) took on a new meaning, representing a unified Palestinian identity through explicitly nationalistic motifs in the embroidery. Before al-Nakba, the thobe expressed the town, city or village that a woman was from, but now, the tatreez motifs tell the story of Palestinian life beyond
borders. In 2021, UNESCO inscribed the art of embroidery in Palestine, encompassing the practices, skills, knowledge, and rituals, on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognizing the centuries-old tradition continues to survive against all odds.

description: Nastassja’s work span’s mediums and processes, existing in fiber, performance, film and installation. During this virtual studio visit, she will demonstrate the needle felting process, the primary process used to create her work, and take viewers through her creative space, detailing how she pulls inspiration and begins each project, and portions of the new body of work she’s working on currently. Nastassja has spent seven months researching the topic of hoods, exploring the garment across cultures, geographies, time periods and subjects. She has now arrived a six new figurative sculptures that are informed by that research, and will share a bit about that process, and the many layers she’s interested in exploring beyond the three-dimensional works (to include two forms of printmaking!).

Bio: 

Nastassja Swift is a multi-disciplinary artist redefining her use of portraiture through wool to create work that speaks to geographical histories, ancestry, ritual practices and community. She is a Virginia Commonwealth University alum, holding a BFA in Painting and Printmaking, and Craft and Material Studies. Most recently, Nastassja was selected as the 2024 Textile Society of America Brandford Elliott Awardee. She is a 2023 recipient of the Center for Craft: Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship, a VMFA Fellowship, a Dr. Doris Derby Award, an Art Matters Fellowship Award, the inaugural Black Box Press Foundation Art as Activism Grant, a Virginia Commission of the Arts Fellowship, and was nominated for the 2024 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship. In 2022, she was invited as a Distinguished Fellow at the Penland School of Craft, and shortly after, was selected for a Public Arts Commission in Richmond, VA, her first large scale public art project.

Nastassja has exhibited and presented her work in institutions nationally and internationally including VCUQatar, Carl Freedman Gallery in the UK, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Virginia MoCA, Boston University Art Galleries, University of Florida, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum of Art, Ball State University and a number of galleries across the East Coast. She has participated in residencies across the United States at the Vermont Studio Center, Penland School of Craft, the Wassaic Project in NY, SPACES in Ohio, and MASS MoCA. Her work has been published in the Berlin publication – SomeMagazine, RVA Magazine, Colossal and Arts and Culture Texas among many others.

Nastassja is currently living and working in Virginia. 

description: During the studio visit, Kijima will provide an in-depth look into her latest work, including pieces from Wanderer’s Tales, where she hand-stitched traditional textiles like Uzbek ikats, Japanese kimonos, and Indian silk sarees. She will also discuss the Community Quilt Project at SAIC, held last April, which explored quilting as a therapeutic practice and focused on sustainability and community building. The presentation will offer a behind-the-scenes look into her creative process, demonstrating how cultural aesthetics, spiritual insights, and environmental consciousness shape her contemporary textile art practice.

Bio:

Ai Kijima, originally from Tokyo and now based in Brooklyn, New York, is an artist known for her vibrant quilts. Kijima blends traditional quilting techniques with pop culture iconography, creating nostalgic yet fresh works from found and repurposed materials.  She has recently expanded her practice to include geometric appliqué using traditional fabrics sourced from India, Uzbekistan, and Japan. These rich cultural materials are woven into her exploration of contemporary identity, memory, and cross-cultural intersections. 

Kijima received her BFA and MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide.

description: Join us for a personal journey exploring the work of Consuelo Jimenez Underwood. The artist’s authentic voice is influenced by her childhood origins as a seasonal farm worker, traumatized by the politically imposed border between Mexican and the US. Seeing her undocumented bracero father subjected to the perpetual threat of deportation spurred her mission to “enlighten” the world to the distress, pain, and sorrow borders inflict on families and individuals.

Jimenez Underwood produces work that conveys both the tragic drama of the borderlands and introduces us to the divine presence that still exists in this troubled area. Life persists despite/in spite of the daily adversity that challenges the borderland ecosystem.

Our discussion will explore how Consuelo’s threadwork creates fiber work imbued with content and context which results in an object that is metamorphosed into Art. By creating beautiful threadwork, Consuelo is empowered by the divine to create meaningful artwork that hopefully will affect the universal spirit that resides in all of us.

Bio: 

Consuelo Jimenez Underwood was born in Sacramento, California, the daughter of migrant agricultural workers, a Chicana mother and a father of Huichol Indian descent. Crossing borders and negotiating between three perspectives has always been fundamental to her identity and the basis of her creative process. Consuelo’s work ranges from delicate miniature tapestries to monumental fiber and mixed media installations juxtaposing the natural beauty and ecological destruction along the US/Mexico border. Consuelo has exhibited and lectured nationally and internationally for more than thirty years. Her work is part of the permanent collections of museums such as the Smithsonian American Museum of Art, Museum of Art & Design in New York, the National Hispanic Center for the Arts, New Mexico, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, El Museo del Barrio, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Oakland Museum of California. She was awarded the 2017 Master Artist Grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture and was elected to the Council of Fellows of the American Craft Council in 2018. She was a 2021 recipient of the James Renwick Alliance for Craft Masters of the Medium Award. And was a 2022 Latinx Artist Fellow with the US Latinx Art Forum.

Consuelo received her BA and MA from San Diego State University. She began teaching fiber art at San Jose State University in 1987, where she received her MFA. Now retired, she taught for more than twenty years, developing a vibrant fiber program, inspiring young artists to embrace thread. Consuelo’s work is examined in-depth in the anthology, “Consuelo Jimenez Underwood: Art, Weaving, Vision,” Edited by Laura E. Pérez, PhD. and Ann Marie Leimer, PhD.

description: 

José Santiago Pérez will share their recent project Shine/Shrink, a series of floor and wall-based works that encircle the pulse of queer desire. Referred to as “embellished voids”, these hand-knotted needle lace membranes, with bead and mylar elements, radiate outward from central silicone rings. Pérez will contextualize the project, share documentation and works in progress.

Bio:José Santiago Pérez (he/they) is an artist and educator based in Chicago. He is a 2024 Fiber Fellow at Colorado College, an Illinois Arts Council Agency Artist Fellowship Finalist in Craft, a 2022 Lunder Institute for American Art resident fellow, and a 2019-2020 HATCH resident at Chicago Artists Coalition. His work has been supported by an Illinois Arts Council Agency grant, an Individual Artist Program grant from the City of Chicago, and a Chicago Artists Coalition SPARK grant. José has presented solo and group exhibitions across the country and currently serves on the board of National Basketry Organization. Features and reviews have appeared in Artforum, Basketry+ Magazine, Sixty Inches from Center, Newcity Art, and the Archives + Futures Podcast. He received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. José has held teaching appointments in the Art Department at Colorado College and in the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.