Text and Textiles | Paradigms of Art History | OSK Seminar

Convenors: Sonia de Laforcade & Hanneke Grootenboer (hanneke.grootenboer@ru.nl) | Credits: 2,5 ECTS

• Meeting 1 | Tuesday September 26 | 11:00-14:00 | Meeting at the Textiel Museum in Tilburg with curator Suzan Rüsseler and librarian Jantiene van Elk
• Meeting 2 | Friday October 13 in Amsterdam, P.C. Hoofthuis room 1.14 | 13:00-16:00
• Meeting 3 | Friday October 20 in Amsterdam, P.C. Hoofthuis room 1.14 | 13:00-16:00

Deadline for registration is September 20, 2023.

Register here

Course Description

Weaving, embroidering or sewing has long been destined to a place in the margins of art history. Traditionally, it has been considered a mere female accomplishment, and (as a result) understood as a craft rather than an act of creation. Objects made of textile as a gendered material thread have usually been given a subordinate place in museum collections and in art historical literature. This marginal position, however, has provided handwork with a subversive force, and its users with a space of rebellion.  Already in antiquity did figures such as Philomena and Penelope find forms of self-expression through needlework and weaving so as to narrate their stories of oppression. Samplers with letters in cross-stitch, central to pre-modern female education, often display autobiographical marks. In the 1970s, feminism was partly shaped by knitting while AIDS activism in the 1990s gained visibility through quilt making. In the past decade, contemporary art has seen a revival of the political potential of sewing and knitting. This resulting in an increasing number of art historical publications on the (early modern) history of needlework or lacemaking as well as a renewed interest in early 20^th century female artists who were working with fabric and fiber such as Anni Albers and Hannah Ryggen.

In this seminar we will discuss the current significance of textiles as a form of expression on the basis of classic texts and recent art criticism.  Our focus will be on the relation between text and textile—a connection also made by Roland Barthes when he compared a text to a tapestry of citation. Our objective is to explore the ways in which textile practices have given underrepresented groups a voice, a form of self-authentication, in the past as well as in the present.  We will also discuss the relation between technology and handicraft. We start our discussion in the Textiel Museum in Tilburg with a tour through the exhibition Textiles Now and an introduction to the lab and the library.  In two following seminars, we will look at contemporary textile in its larger history and will discuss imagery of examples from the 17^th and 18^th century  as well, including imagery of women doing handwork.  Readings may include texts by Sadie Plant, Rozsika Parker, Julia Bryan-Wilson, T’ai Smith, Anni Albers and Cecilia Vicuña.