Exhibition place：Textile Conservation Gallery, CNSM

Exhibition time：2014.10 - 2014.12

    Shibori and ikat both involve the compression of material, in which the dye is resisted, and the dimension of the fabric is transformed. Yarn is transformed into fabric, and dimensional shape changes into flat surface. This practice of compression resist dyeing, which yields colorfast designs in, rather than on the cloth, seems to have arisen spontaneously in many different cultures as an instinctive human activity.
    A wide range of techniques and resulting compression resist patterns are found in ancient and modern textiles in many parts of the world. The pieces in this exhibition cover areas including China, Japan, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Western and Central Africa, South America, and Central and Southeast Asia including the Indonesian archipelago, Cambodia, and Laos.
    In China, archeological digs along the Silk Road have yielded an impressive amount of textiles in bound resist, stitch resist, and carved board clamp resist, for example from the Astana tombs in Turfan in Xinjiang province dating back to the 4th through the early 8th centuries CE. More recent findings from Zagunluk Cemetery near Qiemo, on the southern edge of Taklamakan Desert, date even further back, spanning the 8th to 3rd centuries BCE. Among these textile findings was one of the earliest evidences in the world of bound resist done on wool and traced back to the early Iron Age.
    On display here are nearly 70 pieces from my research archive I have collected since 1970, plus twelve exceptional pieces on loan from the Andres Moraga collection. Fundamentally my research focus is to investigate material culture of different times, places, and peoples through the examination of textiles. I use my eyes and sense of touch to read each piece of textile like a page in a book.