Weaving Europe, Crafting the Museum: Textiles, History and Ethnography at the Museum of European Cultures, Berlin

Description

Weaving Europe, Crafting the Museum explores the history and the changing material culture in Europe, through in-depth explorations of five textile objects; a weaving tool, a woven basket, a carpet, a waistcoat and a dress. Using textiles from a German museum (the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin) to tell their stories in wide-ranging chapters, the book locates fabrics as part of a kaleidoscopic story of textile cultures. Combining new archival research with ethnography, it proposes that textiles can be simultaneously used as the material object of research, and as a metaphorical device, a lens through which we can view museums. The book’s chronological organization reflects the developments of a 20th century museum in a dramatically changing Europe. Each chapter focuses on an object and a key historical period, and can be read individually. Swooping from 19th century curiosity cabinets, Nazi era and Cold War collections to contemporary transformations in Europe, it reveals the shifting, interconnected story of the museum and its textiles. Based on first-hand research with makers and users of fabrics in Italy and Germany, Poland and Romania, the book provides intimate insights into the past through textiles, exploring the ways in which they can be mobilised to very different social and political effects. This includes explorations of their movement across borders, their fall into oblivion, their political uses through time, as well as their heritage and tourist afterlives. Featuring new research, evocative examples and images, it is an essential read for scholars of textile culture, material culture and museum studies, as well as anyone interested in heritage and craft. Cover Contents List of illustrations Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Textiles beyond the folkloric Fieldwork trajectory Textural ethnography The problem of crafting collections Outline of the book 1 Sample collection: Dreams and archives Encounter A place for the museum Textile archives World stage Conclusion 2 Carpets: Knotted histories, recurrent patterns Nationalist folklore School and museum Regained Territories Post-war reconstruction Truly Polish craft Scraps Recurrent patterns Conclusion 3 Woven basket: Untethered art Trader in exotica Survivors Waiting Thread Weaving on demand Valuing work Stubborn survival 4 Waistcoat: Colour and Cold War Language island Go West Perforating the Iron Curtain? Vestige Conclusion 5 Cook’s uniform: Refashioning the social fabric Renewal Reorientation Blue-collar museum House ghosts Costume/fashion Conclusion Conclusion: From unification to prefiguration Collection reimagined Other futures Prefigurative collection Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index