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Friday 14 April 2023
08.30 - 10.30
P-9
WOM18
Threading Gender and Craft: the Gendering of Craft and the Crafting of Gender in Periods of Change and Unrest
E44
Networks:
Labour
,
Women and Gender
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Chair:
Eileen Boris
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Organizers:
Elya Assayag, Sohee Ryuk |
Discussant:
Eileen Boris
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Elya Assayag :
Unstitching the Domestic Sphere in Colonial Morocco (1912-1956): Collecting Historical Evidences through Embroidery
My project started from a rare archival finding: a series of letters in which Yossef Abuganam, a Moroccan Jew originally from Meknes, depicted in detail the abuse his daughter, Margalit, suffered from her husband.[1] Yet, this was a dead end. The domestic sphere, and in particular domestic violence, rarely appears ... (Show more)My project started from a rare archival finding: a series of letters in which Yossef Abuganam, a Moroccan Jew originally from Meknes, depicted in detail the abuse his daughter, Margalit, suffered from her husband.[1] Yet, this was a dead end. The domestic sphere, and in particular domestic violence, rarely appears in textual archives from the colonial period. In order to keep investigating the domestic sphere I came up with a new methodological tool: “Embroidering Histories”. This project allows access to those places missing from the textual archives through the experience of women’s crafts. Upon meeting Moroccan women who lived in Morocco during the colonial period, and learning embroidery from them, I understood that the craft contains an important element of oral and material traditions. Embroidery held an important place in the Moroccan domestic sphere in different stages of one’s life. Over the course of many meetings and the establishing of a continuous relationship, the women invited me into their present and past domestic spheres. This enables them to share stories about what had happened within this sphere, and shed light on the connections between the public colonial regime, and within it the colonial violence, to the domestic sphere. The oral histories in the project are inseparable from the material culture aspects. The act of embroidering alongside the embroidery itself uncover new levels of historical narratives. The project enables women to embroider themselves back into history by situating their experience in a historical context, without the need for words or textual documentation.
This paper investigates the relations between content and format: historical evidence and diverse methodologies. It examines both what can be learned on the Moroccan domestic sphere during the colonial period, alongside an exploration of what can be learned on the historian’s craft when introducing new methodologies.
[1] CAHJP - MA-Mk-1-28 - 4 documents from Yossef Abouganem to the Rabbi Yehusua Bardougu, in the matter of his daughter that suffers from her husband (September, 1931); CAHJP - MA-Mk-1-29 - 4 documents from Yossef Abouganem to the Rabbi Yehusua Bardougu, in the matter of his daughter that suffers from her husband (November, 1931). (Show less)
Anders V. Munch, Rau Ulf Lenskjold & Vibeke Riisberg :
Crafting Platforms - Student Rebellion, Gender Struggles and Collectivism in Danish Crafts 1969-77
During the 1960s the role of arts and crafts changed significantly in Denmark. Among other things the art and craft education moved from a traditional training seen as vocational craft towards freedom for students' own choices be it an artistic practice or new conceptions of craft and design in society. ... (Show more)During the 1960s the role of arts and crafts changed significantly in Denmark. Among other things the art and craft education moved from a traditional training seen as vocational craft towards freedom for students' own choices be it an artistic practice or new conceptions of craft and design in society. For female students this gradually opened new opportunities to earn a living and strive for an independent, professional career. This came, of course, not of itself, but through fights in every step across educational reforms, artistic inventions, collectivist movements and challenging the consumer society. We look at the student rebellion in 1969 at the Copenhagen School of Arts and Crafts, the collective crafts store, Elverhøj, established in 1973, and the gender activism of art exhibitions, where studio crafts performed significant roles. A recurrent theme across the platforms is the interweaving of collaboration and everyday life in sizing upon the new opportunities and in forging viable livelihoods through craft-making.
We have investigated gender struggles through school archives, catalogs, and interviews with participants in the student rebellion, collectives and exhibitions. Both the platforms and understandings of the critical practice of craft, art and design have played a vital role in the last fifty years. This is visible in school reforms, craft organizations, new artistic practices and have even had a revival in recent design student rebellion in Denmark. The current revival has shown a strong tendency to repeat history, so we want to share learnings from this history and avoid dead-ends of earlier struggles. Our study contributes to critical gender and design historiography and challenges the dominant narratives of Danish Design repeating understandings and institutionalised roles of its heydays in the 1950s. (Show less)
Sohee Ryuk :
The “Golden Hands” of the Carpet Weaver: Images of Village Carpet Weaving in the Soviet Union, 1924-1945
This paper examines how gender informed discussions of handicraft carpet weaving in the Caucasus and Central Asia in the Soviet period. Carpet weaving in the South Caucasus and Central Asia was predominantly associated with female labor in the village. For this reason, it was seen as a viable means through ... (Show more)This paper examines how gender informed discussions of handicraft carpet weaving in the Caucasus and Central Asia in the Soviet period. Carpet weaving in the South Caucasus and Central Asia was predominantly associated with female labor in the village. For this reason, it was seen as a viable means through which to engage the village population. Carpet workshops would draw out carpet making from the realm of the home, providing economic and social incentives for women to partake in the Soviet state. Much of the discourse surrounding the labor of carpet women during this time focused on the significance of women’s work. These discussions employed narratives about the necessity to “emancipate” the women weaver from the realm of the home, from under the supervision of the husband. Even as observers understood carpet weaving as a tool for social mobilization, they often reproduced and typified the gender dynamics they were hoping to alter. Carpet weaving continued to be overwhelmingly discussed in the context of domestic labor even until the 1960’s. Carpet weaving was an industry in which women would work from within the confines of the home. The bodies and skill of women weavers were especially pronounced in discussions in the quality of carpets, which were examined from the perspective of expert carpet dealers. Using sources from state organizations, this paper will argue that the way in which weaving and the body of the female weaver emerged in discussions regarding the labor and the work of carpet weaving was crucial to how handicraft carpet weaving was integrated into the Soviet state. (Show less)
Wendy Wiertz :
Lacemaking, Gender Roles and Humanitarian Aid in the First World War
Since its origins in the sixteenth century, lacemaking has been a female-dominated home industry. The craft, its materials and making processes quickly became imbued with gendered connotations. This was no different in Belgium, where lacemaking was an important part of the country’s national heritage. During the First World War this ... (Show more)Since its origins in the sixteenth century, lacemaking has been a female-dominated home industry. The craft, its materials and making processes quickly became imbued with gendered connotations. This was no different in Belgium, where lacemaking was an important part of the country’s national heritage. During the First World War this renowned industry was in danger of disappearing forever: demand for the luxury handmade fabric plummeted, while the supply of materials was interrupted. Thousands of lacemakers faced unemployment. In response, humanitarian organizations developed lace-aid programs: saving an imperilled European tradition, and ensuring the wartime employment of Belgian lacemakers, often women who supported themselves and their families. The schemes were highly successful, bringing unprecedented publicity to the industry and to American philanthropy, and employing more than 50.000 women in German-occupied Belgium and among Belgian refugees in Holland, France and the UK. War lace, with its unique iconography, referred directly to the conflict and included battlefield scenes, names and portraits of people, places, dates, coats-of-arms or national symbols of the Allied Countries, of the nine Belgian provinces or of the Belgian martyr cities. This paper examines to what extent humanitarian lace-aid programs (re)produce the social (and gendered) order and if the lacemakers could find expression and solidarity or even empowerment in these schemes. The results, based on archival, collection and practice-based research in Western Europe and the U.S., will help to understand how craft in humanitarian programs challenges or reifies frameworks and discourses of gender. (Show less)
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