Opening May 20th | Supports Travel for the In-Person Study of Textiles
The TSA Textile Research Travel Grant supports TSA members in traveling to conduct textile-focused research. This may include visiting museum collections, engaging with artists or weavers in their local environments, studying special exhibitions, or other research opportunities centered on the study of actual textiles.
The 2025 grant may be used for travel to attend TSA’s upcoming in-person Textiles Close Up program, taking place Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Philadelphia, PA.
Award Amount
Applicants may request $500–$1,000, depending on the scope of travel (local, national, or international). TSA will award a total of up to $1,000, to be disbursed across 1–2 recipients. Award levels will be determined based on need, project relevance, and travel scale.
Eligibility
Open to all current TSA members. International members planning to use funds outside the U.S. must contact TSA staff prior to applying to ensure compliance with tax laws.
Eligible Travel & Expenses
For the 2025–2026 grant cycle, awards will be used for travel to conduct research in a museum collection, to meet with weavers or artists in their studio and/or local home environments, to see a special textile exhibition, etc. The grant is not intended for travel to TSA symposia, but may be used to travel to attend a TSA Textiles Close Up program.
While recipients must attend the designated program, the grant may be used to cover a wide range of research-related costs associated with this experience, including:
- Transportation (airfare, train, local transit, etc.)
- Lodging/hotel accommodations
- Meals and per diem expenses
- Materials or supplies directly tied to the research experience
- Admission fees or documentation costs
- Related fieldwork or research
Application Requirements
Applicants must submit:
- A brief project statement (purpose, goals, and connection to textile study)
- A bio or CV
- A detailed travel budget (including any other secured or pending funding)
- A short explanation of how research findings will be used or shared (e.g. TSA blog, exhibition, personal study, publication, etc.)
Timeline
- May 20 – Applications Open
- June 13 – Applications Due
- June 23 – Awardees Notified
- July 23 – Textiles Close Up (Philadelphia)
- August 30 – Final grant funds must be spent
- Fall 2025 – Short grant report due via contributing to TSA’s blog or newsletter
How to Apply
Applications will be submitted via TSA membership portal. The Chair of the Awards Committee will share materials with the Review Committee.
Click here to apply: https://textilesocietyofamerica.org/programs/awards-scholarships/research-travel-grant/research-travel-grant-application
Questions?
For questions and further information about the grant, contact the TSA Awards Committee: Vandana Bhandari, Director of Awards and Scholarships vb@vandanabhandari.com and Executive Director Ashley Occhino director@textilesocietyofamerica.org.
About the Grant
TSA’s Research Travel Grant supports two research travel grants (up to $1000 each).
Thanks to the generosity of Elena Phipps, TSA President 2012-2014, and Alan Finkel, TSA is pleased to offer this grant for its third season. The award supports individual TSA members in textiles research-related travel—local, regional, and international of any type, specifically for the in-person study of textiles. The grant may be used for travel to conduct research in a museum, to meet with weavers or artists in their studio and/or local home environments, to see a special textile exhibition, etc. The grant is not intended for travel to TSA symposia.
You must be a current TSA member to receive this grant. Check your membership or renew at https://textilesocietyofamerica.org/membership/
We hope that others may be inspired to contribute to this fund to enable its growth and to provide additional support for this very important opportunity for TSA members.
Please consider contributing to this and other scholarship and financial awards that help us in our mission to support the work of TSA members and our extended textile communities around the world!
2023 Research Travel Grant Recipients
Joelle Firzli is multicultural fashion researcher. Her main area of interest is the intersection between fashion and cultural sustainability, exploring how the business and theory of fashion can help maintain and promote cultural identity, preservation and legacy, as well as social and climate justice. Joelle is also a fashion entrepreneur and the co-founder of Tribute Collective, a responsible multidisciplinary organization focused on elevating visibility for global ethical fashion and design, and on community building through programming such as exhibits, workshops, and discussions about the global fashion industry.
“This proposal seeks support to offset the cost of traveling to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to research, study, and learn about the history and the techniques behind the making of mouchetée fabric. The TSA’s Research Travel Grant will provide me the opportunity to spend time in the studio and workshop of Pathé’O, one the most celebrated and prolific Ivorian designers whose work has been widely acknowledged for its contribution to the collective visual culture of African and global fashion. This support will further enable me to complete one of the chapters on Ivorian textiles and heritage, part of a bigger project on researching the history of textiles and fashion in Cote d’Ivoire. I hope it will serve as a handbook by which designers, students and scholars can better comprehend how Ivorians shape their sartorial and aesthetic identities and re-valorize their cultures through fashion.”
Ashley Newsome Kubley has over 15 years of education and professional experience in the fashion design, apparel production, and textiles industries. She is passionate about the advancement of maker culture as well as the implementation of socially and environmentally sustainable practices in the apparel industry. Her research focuses on bridging the gap between historical techniques and contemporary technologies, pursuing projects at the intersection of history and new technological innovations specific to textiles.
“This grant will support my project, the Maya Youth Artisanship Initiative. The initial project work in 2019 included in-person artisan workshops, interviews and a physical exhibition that was installed in the Museo Artes Populares in Merida, Mexico between August 2021 and April 2022. A virtual exhibit of the work was also created. Between January 2024-August 2024 in Merida I plan to conduct artisan interviews, observations of henequen fiber processing, dyeing and weaving, and relocation of exhibition assets and artifacts created during the MYAI project to the U.S. for further exhibition; and archive/document Louise Vogel’s rare collection of Henequen fiber textile artifacts in partnership with the Museo Del Mundo Maya.”
2019 Research Travel Grant Recipients
Elaine K. Ng is an artist whose work explores the physical and psychological structures of site. Through the use of material and pattern, her sculptural objects and installations examine the visual language, perception, and collective knowledge of place. She holds a BA from the University of California, Davis, an MBA/MA from Southern Methodist University, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She exhibits and lectures internationally and has been a Visiting Professor at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) University and a Visiting Artist at Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA). She was a resident artist at Haystack’s Open Studio Residency in 2017 and has been selected for the Djerassi Resident Artist Program in 2019. In 2017-18 she was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship for research in Taiwan.
“A TSA travel grant will assist in my travel to Japan to research the history and learn the techniques of kasuri, the form of ikat resist dyeing and weaving unique to Japan. The first segment of my project will involve attending workshops at the Kawashima Textile School in Kyoto for a month. After developing this foundation, I plan to conduct additional research on the regional variations of kasuri in Nara, Karume, Fukuoka, and Okinawa by visiting textile museums, artists’ studios, and small-scale weaving facilities. In learning about kasuri (the techniques, its history, and the regional variations) I hope to develop a more intimate understanding to the point where I can utilize the method directly and indirectly in my own artwork. […]As someone of East Asian descent, I often notice a lack of resources about East Asian weaving in western academia. Much of the information seems to be perfunctory, exoticized, or only pictorial. This is especially true with kasuri, as it is so regionally specific and knowledge of the technique is waning. I hope the month of workshops at Kawashima will provide me with an opportunity to immerse deeply into learning about kasuri in the culture of its origin, and open the door for me to do additional research more easily on the history and variations of kasuri in other areas of Japan.”
Elizabeth Kalbfleisch is an art historian based in Toronto, Canada. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester. She researches and publishes in the field of modern and contemporary Canadian Indigenous art and textiles, and textiles by Canadian women artists more broadly. Forthcoming publications this year include, “Celebration or Craftsploitation? Cultural Diplomacy, Marketing and Coast Salish Knitting,” in the Journal of Canadian Art History, and with Janet Berlo, “Indigenous Textiles of North America: A Century of Exhibitions,” in the Blackwell Companion to Textile Culture.
“My new research focuses on the influence of government and corporate commissions in the flourishing of textile art by Canadian women artists (settler and Indigenous) in the 1960s and 1970s and the role of these textiles in public spaces. This project takes the form of several case studies, each focusing on a different artist or group of artists and the commission of a major work of public art. I am seeking a TSA Research Travel Grant to conduct research for one of these case studies. The focus of this research is Mariette Vermette-Rousseau (1926-2006), the highly esteemed weaver from Québec, who made the stage curtain for the Eisenhower Theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. This woven curtain, Mortaises rouge dans le noir (1966-1971), was presented as a gift from the government of Canada to the United States to mark the inauguration of the Kennedy Center in 1971. I believe it to be an excellent case study through which to broach the relationship between textiles and cultural diplomacy, a topic explored in my previous research on Northwest Coast Indigenous knitting from this era. […] Ultimately, my research on Vermette-Rousseau would form a chapter for a book of multiple case studies.”
