Writing with Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities

Santa Fe, NM, March 21, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Writing with Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities, features a rare collection of entire ensembles of women's, men's and children's ceremonial dress, baby carriers, quilt covers, festive and religious vestments, silver jewelry, embroidered silk valences, and wax-resist dyed curtains, plus a loom, weaving tools, and embroidery cases. More than 500 objects in Writing with Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities, represent 15 ethnic groups and nearly 100 subgroups in China.

Writing with Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities opens at the Museum of International Folk Art on May, 15, 2009 and runs through August 16, 2009.

Writing with Thread explores the meanings associated with the production and use of indigenous clothing. In societies without written languages, traditions and customs are orally passed from generation to generation. However, the textile arts, largely practiced by women, provide tangible evidence of a group's history, myths, and legends. The signs and patterns woven or embroidered in their clothing are often replicated in the accompanying silver ornaments made by men. Together, the textiles and silver ornaments, as complements to their oral traditions, record and transmit ideas and concepts that are important for the preservation and reconstruction of the identities of their makers and users. The exhibition, the largest and most comprehensive of its kind to date, will showcase costumes from the Miao, Yi, Dong, Tujia, Shui, Zhuang, Dai, Buyi, Yao, Wa, and Zang. The needlework and silverwork of each ethnic group show variations in their myths of origin and heroic combats, communal memories, and wish fulfillment.

Dr. Angela Sheng from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada is principal curator of the exhibition assembled from the collections of the Evergrand Museum in Taiwan and opening at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Art Gallery. Writing with Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities, is accompanied by a 320-page illustrated catalogue documenting the exhibition.

The Woman’s Board of the Museum of New Mexico will host a reception for the opening of Writing with Thread on May 15, 2009 from 5:00-7:30 p.m. At 6:00 p.m. curator Angela Sheng will give a lecture.

For more information about Writing with Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities, related exhibition programming, and images please visit their Media Center, http://media.newmexicoculture.org/. To download text and high resolution images you will need to register if you have not already done so.

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