Samantha Comerford, Assistant Collections Manager at the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, researches 19th-century hairwork and attends a workshop to learn hairwork techniques…using her own hair!
Textiles
Written in Silk: Dr. Marjon Ornstein Preserves Unique Turkish Textile
Through the Adopt-a-Textile program of the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, Dr. Ornstein has supported a deeper, multi-faceted understanding of a unique, century-plus-year-old silk wall hanging from Turkey.
An Aria in Hats, Lace and Silk
Through hundreds of hours of hands-on volunteering, Sue Engstrom is giving the public, scholars and students something she never really had in her own days as an undergraduate at UW-Madison: Access to one of the most diverse and valuable textile collections in the country.
CDMC Conversation Series with Annette Becker
Art History Ph.D. Candidate, Tania Kolarik, will chat with Annette Becker, Director of the Texas Fashion Collection, about her path to becoming the director, the history of the collection, and how she uses it to teach material culture to students.
Curation Highlight: Rapid Response Mask Collecting Project
Natalie Wright, curator of the Rapid Response Mask Collecting Project, provides insights into the project’s ongoing efforts to capture the varying and vital roles that masks play in daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Woven Together: Hello Loom at Copenhagen Contemporary
Online Launch: Fall 2020. This exhibition explores themes of materiality, process and international collaboration. In 2019, University of Wisconsin–Madison associate professor Marianne Fairbanks and textile artist Sofia Hagström Møller invited a group of professional Danish weavers to contribute pieces produced on Fairbanks’s hand-held Hello Looms for a show at Copenhagen Contemporary.
Rapid Response Mask Collecting Project
Online Launch: Fall 2020. Since March of 2020 face masks have become our central tool in the fight against COVID-19. This exhibition seeks to understand the new ways in which textiles play a critical role in our daily lives as protective face coverings. It uses a “rapid response” collecting model to select masks for the HLATC which mark this contemporary moment as historic.
Sofia Hagström Møller: Weaving Threads Through Time and Space
Online Launch: Fall 2020. This exhibition of Danish fiber artist Sofia Hagström Møller’s work investigates the roots of Scandinavian textile design and celebrates the legacy that American weaving owes to these traditions. By translating her grandmother’s patterns through digital technology during a residency at UW–Madison, Hagström Møller’s art travels through time and space.
UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage
Installed in Gallery: February 5 – April 3, 2020. Online Launch: Summer 2020. “UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage” seeks to humanize the word “refugee.” This multimedia exhibit features the sculptures of Mohamad Hafez, a Syrian-born, Connecticut-based artist and architect who re-creates war-torn domestic interiors within suitcases. HLATC pieces were placed in dialogue with UNPACKED.
Intersections: Indigenous Textiles of the Americas
Installed in Gallery: September 5 – December 6, 2019. Online Launch: Summer 2020. From the Andes to the Great Lakes, textiles reflect cultural narratives of community and tradition. This exhibit analyzes select textiles from HLATC and the Little Eagle Arts Foundation to provide a deeper understanding of the lifeways, movement, and stories of these objects.