Creating a Connected Textile Community
There has been a particular rethinking among ethnology, natural history, art and national museums that display textiles and other traditional cultural expressions that have roots in contemporary communities and living cultures. There is now an effort to address the historical lack of agency of these communities in how their identity was portrayed by engaging them in museum activities.
On the one hand, books are fixed, stuck in time, immutable. On the other, they have secret lives based on the relationships, known or unknown, among the people who read them.
A textile tour is an opportunity to meet the beautiful people that create such treasures and to learn a bit from their wise cultures. Unfortunately, since early 2020 the pandemic put a stop to most organized textile travel. Many weaving communities dependent on tourism have suffered greatly, with few visitors to buy their textiles on top of the suffering that covid itself brought.
The National Maya Weavers Movement Ruchajixik Ri Qana’Ojbäl in just a few years has risen to national and international prominence. Thanks to the movement, for the first time in centuries, we have the opportunity to hear the voices of Maya women who live traditional lives in their villages as they formally commit to protect and defend their textiles and their way of life.
Recently we put out a call for WARP authors to send in a list of their books to be included in an online library, or at least reference list, available on WARP’s webpage for the people who want to know more. So far only 15 authors have submitted information, but the range of subjects more than confirms what a good idea this is.
COVID has been like a long hurricane, taking out not only roofs over people’s heads but food and livelihoods. So last year, for the first time ever, WARP gave out grants to artisan groups in seven countries, “for food, medical, and/or housing needs”, and grantees used the funds as they most needed them.
In this month’s blog each of the members of this year’s Board of Directors shares their excitement about being on the board and what lies ahead in the next year(s).
The WARP Annual Meeting that took place over the weekend of June 18 – 20, 2021 was an amazing event, successful on all counts. Our first Zoom conference, there were almost no technical glitches.