Textile Ecologies
05. Feb - 07. Feb
Online Conference „Textile Ecologies“ organized by Sylvia Houghteling (Bryn Mawr College) und Vera-Simone Schulz (Leuphana University Lüneburg / KHI Florenz)
- 5 to 7 February, 2025, Leuphana University
- The conference will be held in English.
- Please register for free online participation: https://eu02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/UloVZmLBTJaJGv3R12zTTA#/registration
Among the artifacts crafted by humankind, textiles have always held a uniquely interdependent relationship with the environment. Textiles derive from vegetal (hemp, raffia, ramie, cotton, or bark cloth), animal (wool, silk) and even mineral origins (as in the case of asbestos fibers). The production of textiles has depended upon access to and the processing of raw materials, while cloth manufacturing has reshaped entire landscapes from the transplantation of mulberry trees for sericulture to the mounds of murex shells discarded after the extraction of Tyrian purple dye. Textile patterns abound with imagery of flora and fauna, while fabrics have come to shape myths and metaphors of the natural world. Textiles have connected distant regions, but they have also been responsible for and complicit in the enslavement of human beings and the exploitation of agricultural, artisanal, and industrial labor. Textile production has led to the despoliation of landscapes and water resources, often in unequal ways that resulted from colonialism and environmental racism. Despite the recent concern with historical legacies of environmental harm, the field of ecological humanities has mostly neglected the textile realm. This online conference considers the relationship between textiles and the environment and brings together scholars, artists, and cultural practitioners who grapple with the aesthetic dimensions, ecological conditions, and the past, present, and potential futures of cloth.
The conference is co-organized by Prof. Dr. Vera-Simone Schulz, Junior Professorship of Transcultural Art History at Institute of Philosophy and Art History (IPK). Please see the schedule.
Please see the schedule.