Symposium Highlights
Individuals’ Reflections on the 14th Biennial Symposium
compiled by Wendy Weiss
Carmen Artigas, speaker and sustainable fashion designer and consultant (http://www.carmenartigas.com/): “I left inspired and with great memories. It offered the unique opportunity to meet academics, scholars, curators, collectors, textile artists, designers and conservators all in one place.”
Carmen participated in the pre-symposium tours that visited dosa, (http://dosainc.com/): “I truly enjoyed the guided tour by Christina Kim of her atelier and showroom where she shared with us her 30 year journey while holding a very clear vision of her brand dosa, which is one of my favorite labels!!”
Noting that the range of topics and insights
was wonderful, Carmen writes, “My favorite pre- sentation, was by Rangina Hamidi from Kandahar Treasure. It was amazing to witness how her
work can make such a huge difference in an organization and that she is willing to risk her own safety in order to carry on with her mission to empower women artisans, Rangina is remark- able!”
Finally, Carmen writes a sentiment that many share: “I’m grate- ful to have been part of this symposium.”
Sharing Carmen’s enthusiasm for dosa, Susan Bean, a con- sulting curator and independent scholar on the visual arts of modern South Asia, as well a TSA board member writes, “For
me, the most illuminating experience at the symposium was the trip to Christina Kim’s dosa. I found her space amazing, beautiful to be in. But what struck me and stayed with me, was the way she gathered, selected, arranged, and laid out objects and samples in a visual archive to serve as design research and inspiration. Seeing this amounted to a material insight into her creative process.”
New TSA board member and symposium speaker, Rowland Ricketts, writes, “Highlights for me include the session Thinking, Living, Moving, Dying: Contemporary Artists Investigations.” He goes on to remark that it is not only the organized activities that make an impression, he also appreciates “the many valuable conversations I was able to have with TSA’s ‘senior faculty’ (so-to-speak) who are the leaders in our field and who are always so open about sharing their advice, support, and experience with younger members.”
Barbara Shapiro, past TSA board member and textile artist (http://barbara-shapiro.com/) sums it up, saying “the whole Symposium was extremely well run, efficient, inspiring and altogether satisfying. It was an incredible opportunity to learn and share with an outstanding group of our peers.”
Ask anyone who attended the symposium what impressed them, and you will likely get similar responses about the collegiality and diversity of the group. My personal favorite presentation was during the very first set of concurrent sessions, a paper on polychrome Italian laces from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The session was titled Embroidered Stories: Interpreting Women’s Domestic Needlework from the Italian Diaspora. The speaker, Chiara Romano, deftly introduced her topic and elegantly presented details on the structure, dyes, and characteristics of this little known textile, integrating scientific research, cultural context and artistry.
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