Collection Research | Textile practices as ways to heal, care and resist

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE RESEARCH | Luisa Michelsen, Magdalena Wiener

In regard to the extensive collections of textiles from Mesoamerica and South America at the NMVW, this present research takes place through conversations whose goal it is to reflect on the relationship between and among the philosophy, science and techniques, which inform these textiles. The conversations focus on the active and critical role of textile creators in shaping our contemporary world, as strategy of collective resistance, care and healing. This workshop is inspired by recent academic research referred to as “ontology of making,” as well as the writings of Arturo Escobar, Edgar Garcia, María Lugones and Carolina Cuevas Parra.

Prácticas textiles como formas de sanar, cuidar y resistir

En relación a las extensas colecciones de textiles de Mesoamérica y Sudamérica que se encuentran en el NMVW estas conversaciones contribuyen a reflexionar sobre la relacion entre la filosofia, la ciencia y las tecnicas de estos textiles. Es de nuestro interes centrarnos en el papel activo y crítico de los creadores textiles en la conformación de nuestro mundo contemporáneo tanto como en la creación textil como estrategia de resistencia colectiva, cuidado y curación. Este taller se inspira en una reciente investigacion academica “ontología del hacer” asi como Arturo Escobar, Edgar Garcia, María Lugones y Carolina Cuevas Parra.

Luisa Michelsen

Luisa Michelsen is an Arts Manager and Programme Curator with a Master’s Degree in Museology/Museography from University of Westminster UK. As a British-Peruvian bi-national she has a deep understanding of Latin American and British art and culture enabling connections beyond the fine arts and into all areas of historical, modern and contemporary culture. Most recently as Arts Manager in British Council Peru, she has worked leading innovative strategic programmes to develop the cultural sector and social impact within the Americas. She has a keen interest in work that is multi-artform and participatory, challenges uses of public space, supports positive social change and represents the expression and creativity of diverse voices.

Magdalena Wiener

Magdalena Wiener is an Art Historian and Cultural Anthropologists who is currently working as freelance Cultural Manager and Curator, and as Research Associate at the Research Center of Material Culture in Leiden. She has worked several years as project manager at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin before she joined the Goethe-Institut in Mexico, where she was the Coordinator of the Visual Arts Program of the German-Mexican Dual Year 2016-2017. In 2018 she was invited to co-curate the exhibition Mexico Textil at the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City. Her research focuses on Mexican textile artesania and contemporary artisanal practices as “ontologies and epistemologies of making,” as systems of knowledge and living that unfold in the daily life of their makers and that can be understood -in parts- as an active response to the political, social and economic circumstances of indigenous communities in Mexico, particularly in relation to the history of colonialism and its afterlives, from national identity politics to neo-liberal state policies. Her current research focuses therefore, on textile practices as communal strategies of resistance, self-determination and persistence, particularly in relation to gender violence and, what Maria Lugones has termed, the coloniality of gender.