Browsing by Subject "Textiles"

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A long and boring story (illustrated)
(2021-05-06) Riley, Magdalena J.; Sutherland, Dan, 1966-
A collection of thoughts assembled between October 9, 2020 and April 27, 2021 regarding the art-life of Magdalena Jarkowiec.
The Art & Art History Collection (AAHC)
(2017) Bourget, Stephen; Jones, Kimberly; Runggaldier, Astrid; Doroba, Mark (photographer)
The Art and Art History Collection (AAHC) consists of ancient artifacts, historic objects, and ethnographic materials from the Americas and Africa. The bulk of the collection was formed in 2004, consisting of cultural collections transferred from the Texas Memorial Museum (TMM), currently part of the Texas Natural Science Center (TNSC). The initial transfers from the TMM included largely pre-Columbian and ethnographic collections pertaining to Central and South America. Subsequent acquisitions expanded the scope to include objects from Central Africa and the North American Southwest. The transfers continued through 2008, bringing the current department holdings to nearly four thousand artifacts. The Art and Art History department acquisitions were supplemented in 2005 by a generous donation of sixty-five objects from Duncan and Elizabeth Boeckman of Dallas, Texas. The Boeckman collection represents cultures from Central and South America, predominantly ceramic figurines from Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima cultures of West Mexico. The artifacts complement well the pre-Columbian acquisitions and further enrich the strong Americas focus of the department collection. The most substantial holdings of the AAHC are the ancient ceramic, stone, and textile artifacts created by various pre-Columbian societies. From South America, the collection includes numerous ritual ceramics and exceptionally fine textiles, pertaining to the Nasca, Moche, Chimú, Lambayeque (Sicán), and Chancay cultures. From Central America, the AAHC boasts a rich variety of ceramic vessels, modeled figurines, bone and stone sculptures created by the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Colima, Nayarit, Zapotec, and Veracruz cultural traditions. The holdings further comprise tripod vessels and bowls from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Bolivia, and Ecuador. In addition to the pre-Columbian objects, the AAHC has a distinguished group of over 700 historic and ethnographic textiles from Mexico, Guatemala, and the U.S. Southwest. These include numerous colorful huipiles (womens’ shirts) from Guatemala and mantas (shawls) from Zinacantan, Oaxaca, and the Huichol regions, collected largely from the 1960s through 1970s. The collection also hosts over sixty Navajo and Hopi textiles that date from the 19th to early 20th centuries. There are a limited number of African artifacts within the department collection. The objects largely derive from West Africa, such as a divination tray from the Yoruba. There are also wooden sculptures and masks from the Dogon, the Senufo and Mali regions. Representing over two thousand years of ritual and artistic practices, the collection supports a broad range Representing over two thousand years of ritual and artistic practices, the collection supports a broad range of academic interests for individual research and course instruction. Highly select and representative examples of the collection are on permanent display in the Fine Arts Library, including pre-Columbian ceramics, stone sculptures, and textiles, as well as the African wooden sculptures. Portions of the collection have further been exhibited in the Mexic-Arte Museum, the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, the UT Visual Arts Center, and the College of Fine Arts Deans office. Finally, the collection is being digitally catalogued for greater accessibility. Through exhibition, teaching and research, the AAHC thus serves as a substantial resource for university students and the greater scholarly community.
Epinetra at large : textile tools from the wider Greek world
(2020-01-29) Zamir, Einav; Papalexandrou, Athanasios Christou, 1965-
This dissertation reexamines the epinetra of the sixth through fourth centuries from across the Mediterranean, with special interest in the material from outside of Athens. Methodologically, this text strays from previous studies that focused more heavily on visual analysis of motifs than the possible usage of functional prototypes. The research presented here combines direct anthropological study of modern textile traditions, new evidence from site museums, and observation and handling of non-Athenian objects to determine function. The evidence from ancient lexicographers and modern textile workers suggests that epinetra were used for thigh spinning and were likely preferable for the spinning of linen. Their popularity between the sixth and fourth centuries seems to correspond to this reality, with an increased investment in linen body armor by Greek military forces. A woman’s role in creating linen items was therefore considered a major contribution to the state and the family. As the seated position was associated with mature women, epinetra served as appropriate grave goods in female burials and as votive offerings to female deities associated with childbirth and rearing.
Faegheh Shirazi Interview
(2021-06-18) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Faegheh Shirazi, a professor in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at UT Austin. Faegheh talks about her family life and education in Iran before the Iranian Revolution, including her early exposure to education and religion prior to moving to the United States for college. She tells the story of her higher education and how she ultimately found her scholarly passions for textile history and Muslim women’s studies. Faegheh also discusses the areas in which she teaches and publishes, such as understanding the hijab in intersectional contexts and Muslim women’s lifestyles and leadership.
Reconstructing the body : the textile forms of Peju Alatise and Grace Ndiritu
(2013-05) Ringle, Hallie Ruth; Okediji, Moyosore B. (Moyosore Benjamin)
Nigerian sculptor Peju Alatise and British/Kenyan video artist Grace Ndiritu create works centered on the female form. In these works the artists turn to flesh, their own and representations of, in order to expose prevailing notions of the black female body. Peju Alatise’s mixed-media sculpture, 9 Year Old Bride (2010), depicts the hollow bodies of seven small female figures created from fabric and frozen in motion by resin and white paint. Ndiritu’s video paintings, Still Life: Lying Down Textiles (2007)and Still Life: White Textiles (2005-2007) similarly employs cloths as means of covering and creating the body. In Still Life: Lying Down Textiles, Ndiritu reclines on the floor amongst a rich array of fabrics. Completely covered by cloth, except for her right arm, Ndiritu breathes heavily and twitches for entirety of the five-minute film. In her second film, Still Life: White Textiles, Ndiritu manipulates a large piece of fabric between her bare legs and arms which hints at, but never grants nudity. This thesis argues that both Alatise and Ndiritu incorporate wax-printed fabrics to conceal/reveal and construct/deconstruct the female form. Both artists do so as means of destabilizing dominant essentialized notions of black womanhood rooted in colonial visual practices. The paper draws similarities between Alatise and Ndiritu’s works to colonial photographic practices and historical figures of curiosity, such as Sara Baartman, which both inform contemporary understandings of the black female body. Rather than simply repeat—and therefore perpetuate—Western imagined qualities of deviant sexualities and sexual availability, this thesis asserts that Alatise and Ndiritu allude to and ultimately undermine these notions through a careful control of nudity. The last section of the thesis distinguishes the artistic practices of Ndiritu and Alatise from artists working in similar mediums. Though artists like Yinka Shonibare and Lalla Essaydi incorporate textiles into their works, Ndiritu and Alatise are unique for their use of textiles as extensions of the body rather than simply coverings for the figure. Lastly, the thesis argues that Alatise and Ndiritu straddle both Orientalist and Occidentalist understandings of African culture, incorporating elements of both, seemingly inverse, theories into their artistic practices.
Soft spaces
(2014-05) Sanga, Monica; Purnell, Mary; Coker, Coleman
The purpose of this studio was to investigate materiality in the scales of human habitation and to expand traditional notions of architecture through narrative-based design. Narrative-based design is the culmination of studies in the phenomenology of built forms and spatial constructions. It is an experience oriented, democratizing process rather than an image-based, hierarchical process. Using narrative-based design and research on theoretical stances of product manufacturing and interior design we created a domestic space that is an installation. We will built upon Lois Weinthall’s insights regarding the scalar difference between the body, interior design and architecture, and Anni Albers’ theory that the technology of craft should be revealed in the work especially in expressing the nature of the materials used.
The fabric of the early modern city : mass production of silk and local architectural patronage in Kashan, Iran, mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries
(2021-08-13) Sayadi, Nader; Mulder, Stephennie F.; Carey, Moya; Charlesworth, Michael; Karimi, Pamela; Leoshko, Janice; Milwright, Marcus
Much of the urban population in the late medieval and early modern Islamic world drew their livelihood from industry. In the city of Kashan in central Iran, a group of silk weaving (shaʿrbafi) workshops survives as a remnant of the city’s history of crafts. These ordinary buildings — regarded as vernacular architecture — have been the subject of studies in historic preservation and architectural engineering. Nevertheless, the history of these buildings and their relation to Kashan remains understudied. This research situates these workshops in their socio-economic context in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by applying a variety of sources and methodologies, including architectural and structural analysis of the workshops, ethnographic investigation of the silk craft, local socio-political histories of notables, global economic histories of silk, and visual analysis of contemporary fashion. It argues that local elites of Kashan built these shaʿrbafi workshops in a short period of time to revive the mass production of silk fabrics as part of city-wide economic and urban development after a devastating earthquake in 1778/1192. Through the history of these workshops, this interdisciplinary study also seeks to contribute to a few ongoing discussions in the scholarship: first, it suggests a methodological approach to historical studies of mundane buildings in the Islamic world, which, unlike monumental architecture, have not often been fully represented in secondary sources. It also offers an alternative approach to interpret the city beyond the essentialist perspectives common in urban histories of the Islamic world. Second, this research focuses on the process of making objects, particularly textiles, and their production network as often overlooked topics in Islamic art and urban histories. Third, this study adds to recent scholarship that concentrates on the peripheries of the Islamic world by examining the local socio-economic dynamics of provinces rather than dynastic powers in capital cities. Finally, it challenges master narratives arguing for the “short eighteenth century” in Iranian history scholarship, as well as Eurocentric interpretations of industrial cultures and mass production. The history of these workshops allows for a more nuanced interpretation of the material culture, urban development, and production of goods in the Islamic world.