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First day of our course.
travels, stories, memories, belongings, research.
so many parts of the world in the room, meanings and cultural belonging, in textiles and their histories, textures and colors, paterns and representations.
We'll work together for one week, discovering each other and thinking together. Cloth, fabric, textile. Weaving our work with attachments, intentions and future endeavours.
My chosen object is a woven shawl that began from a failure. The weft here, composed of baby alpaca wool, was originally the warp of another weaving. My good friend picked up this soft brown wool in Bolivia some years ago. She has since passed.
Pha hol is the name for an ikat-patterned silk cloth woven among ethnically minoritized Khmer communities in today's Thailand, especially in Surin and Buriram provinces. Hol is "the Queen of Surin silk" many say -- the most beautiful, locally meaningful pattern. Calling hol a Queen draws attention to its creation and use primarily by women.
[ _ a note ]
This time, the trip to the Netherlands reminds me of my life in Palestine.
At our first meeting for the In Situ Graduate School, Textile and Dyes as Transnational, Global Knowledge in Leiden the Netherlands, each participant shared an object, image, textile, etc. that holds meaning for particular reasons. I decided to share a pin that I purchased in Chicago, IL at the Silver Room boutique. The pin features Patrick Kelly (1954-1990), an African American fashion designer who came to fame in France, and was the first American designer to be admitted to the Chambre syndicale du prêt-à-porter des couturiers et des créateurs de mode.
This screenshot was taken on the webpage of an online shop, called 'Ethnostalgic', on the popular e-commerce platform Etsy. On this platform, shops from all over the world are given the possibility to sell their products to far away customers and communicate with them. The products on sale on the platform are often handmade or locally made, and these qualities are usually remarked in their descriptions in order to increase their value. With this sale model, Etsy has established itself has a successful platform for the trading of local products.
The two textiles shown side by side, are Ajraks-- the blue silk one is from Karachi, Pakistan and the blue-red is a wool-silk scarf produced in Bhuj, India. While deeply visually similar, the textiles are produced in two countries, that though border each other, are divided by political conflict that does not allow trade or travel between the two countries-- even to conduct research. The blue silk scarf is mine and the blue-red scarf belongs to Meera Curam.
In the winter of 2021 while visiting family in Pakistan, I was searching the carpet stores of Islamabad for an affordable rug to take back to Toronto. Islamabad, with the highest number of foreign diplomats in Pakistan, is full of art and craft stores in central locations which cater mainly to non-Pakistanis. As compared to stores which target locals, these craft stores have a well-curated collection of ‘authentic-looking’ craft that appeal more to Western palates.
While browsing through the items at the shop at the textile research center, a pile of indigo-dyed silk pocket squares caught my eye. The print was familiar, resembling what I have seen often in textile shops and worn by the women in South Africa, a fabric best known as Shweshwe.
This is my ‘misar’, a beautifully red and black tie-dyed silk scarf that was handed down from my nani, my maternal grandmother to my mum and is now kept close to me in my home. This ‘misar’ represents the bundles of fabrics that travelled with Indian migrants as they moved across the world, specifically in my case, on the ships that brought the first passenger Indians from Gujerat to the shores of Natal, South Africa.
The art form of Mata Ni Pachedi is something that I had not come across before; it was awe-inspiring not only for its complex design, meticulous patterns and precision of practice, but the story of the community of makers and users.
The Indigo Dyeing Tradition in Daboya: Notes from the Field
Daboya is a semi-urban community in the Savanna Region of Ghana. It is well noted for its organic indigo textile dyeing and weaving tradition which dates back to over three centuries. Before the introduction of synthetic dyes, Indigo was the foundation of most textile traditions in West Africa. In Ghana, most of the traditional smock dresses and related fabrics that are worn are produced in Daboya. Below, I present an account of the indigo dyeing process as observed in Daboya in May 2022.
Clad in polka dots,
Eyes glitter despite wet toes,
Exchanging this love.
After days of rain, the sunlight
shimmers – dappled shadows dance.
Living tradition,
Colors bleed transformation,
An elsewhere awaits.
What do our bodies know that
text cannot articulate?
Shuttling asleep,
Lines collapse past and future.
Who holds the power?
Resisting capture, its wings
flutter, fighting off the pin.
The first photograph is one that depicts a Jacquard loom print card, a piece of cardboard that has been punctured with holes in order to consistently replicate a complex design on a weaving loom. This particular print card would have been used to create handmade Dutch damask linen in the 19th century, as part of the W.J. van Hoogerwou & Zonen mill whose pieces are currently located at the Textielmuseum in Tilburg, Netherlands. One such product of damask linen would be a tablecloth, which was also on display nearby.
This image is of the front edifice of the Museum de Lakenhal in Leiden, NL. Carved in the facade are representation of the spinning, weaving, and dyeing process for the historic laken textile produced in Leiden in the Early Modern Era. Through paintings of textiles and their production and the museum is dedicated to telling the history of the laken textile process that was historic to Leiden for centuries until production was halted in 1979.
As we walked through the hall of "Asia" to reach "Africa," the Volkenkunde Museum's only displayed object from Thailand caught my eye, its embroidered metal threads glinting in the dark. Embroidered script and teardop-shaped lotus buds adorn a piece of silk stretched tight around a frame to form an oblong fan that would have been held by a monk near his face as he chanted during rituals at a temple, in a homes, or in other spaces where monks are invited to preside.
A display section at the Vlisco shop space in Helmond, The Netherlands.
The clearly 'not-white' non-living mannequin, decked up in African cloth 'Made in Holland' is placed at the end of the factory space between the sanitizer and the toilet. Above the toilet door are photo frames carrying magazine covers and featured media showcasing Vlisco fabrics worn by living 'white' models.
Pictured here is a textile produced in India for the Ghanaian cloth market. It is a black and white cloth that appears to use a combination of a type of compound weave and floating warps. The patterns are taken from kente, a fine handwoven cloth originating in central and southern Ghana. It is woven in a way that imitates the structure of true kente, which is comprised of several narrow strips of cloth sewn together at the selvage. Kente is a treasured symbol of wealth and status among the Akan (the family of ethnicities to which the Asante belong) and the Ewe people.
Pictured here is an example of a Cameroonian “bag loom” set with an in-process piece of raffia cloth. It is likely from a town in the Bamenda grass fields in Cameroon’s northwest region. These particular raffia frame looms are used in Western Cameroon and southeastern Nigeria. Although distinct characteristics distinguish looms made in this weaving area, they are part of a continuum of African upright single heddle looms used from the windward coast to the Congo basin.
