Saturday, March 5, 2011
 

Textile Museum Associates of Southern California, Inc,
and UCLA Asia Institute / Program on Central Asia

Present

"Textiles as Treasures:
Cultures of Consumption in Central Asia and Beyond"

Weaving together the study of material culture with the history of the communities who commodified it, “Textiles as Treasures” brings together historians of trade with ethnographers and collectors to unravel the collusions of artisans and merchants that sustained a Cotton no less than a Silk Road across Eurasia. As commodities formed through the interaction of the raw materials, tastes, cultural traditions and skills of the many different peoples brought together by trade, Central Asia’s textiles form the material record of a long history of cultural entanglement. By examining the social lives of textiles that range from nomadic carpets to urbane silks and brocades, the conference traces the weft of human relations that was woven by the movement of these treasured textiles within Central Asia and beyond. Framing aesthetic no less than commercial value as correlations of space and contact, the conference uncovers the different cultures of consumption that between the tents of Transoxiana and the bungalows of Los Angeles have lent so many meanings and functions to these quintessential products of the Central Asian steppe

Panel I: Textiles as Commodities (Historical Perspectives)

Jon Thompson, Ashmolean Museum (ret.), Oxford University

“The Traditional Weaving Culture of the Turkmen: What Happened in the 1870s?”

Claude Markovits, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris

“Indian Merchant Networks and their Role in Commercial Exchange between India and Central Asia (XVIth-XIXth Centuries)”

Andrew Hale, Independent Scholar, Anahita Gallery, Santa Fe

“Trade and Tradition: Nineteenth Century Textile Production and Commercialization”

  Panel II: Textiles as Craft (Contemporary Perspectives

Mary Dusenbury, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas

“Central Asian Ikat Today: Networks of Design, Production and Marketing”

Lotus Stack, Curator Emerita, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

“Adapting Artistic Sensibilities and Traditional Technology to Contemporary Market Opportunities

Chris Martens, Independent Scholar, New York

“Quilts and Patchwork of Central Asia”

 Show and Tell: Central Asian Rugs and Textiles from Local Private Collections

David Reisbord in costume              Kazakh                            Andy Hale comments on an ikat panel