7000 years of hand woven textiles in one exhibition!
TRC Gallery exhibition, 26 May – 23 September 2014
Woman in Lima, Peru, with backstrap loom. Photograph: Jefke van ItersonThe Gallery exhibition at the Textile Research Centre, Leiden, is a must for textile lovers.
The exhibition includes some of the oldest textiles in the world. They come from Çatal Hüyük (Turkey). These tiny fragments are about 7000 years old, and what a story they tell about the long history of hand weaving! Other unusual items on display include textiles that were originally wrapped around the Dead Sea Scrolls, examples of Coptic tapestries from Egypt, as well as medieval and Renaissance velvets and silk woven textiles. All of them are hand woven!
The exhibition also includes textiles and handlooms from Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East, including a Bedouin loom from Jordan, as well as a replica of a warp-weighted loom of the type used by the ancient Greeks, Romans and Vikings. Some of the looms on display can be used by the general public.
TRC exhibition Weaving the World. Photograph: Joost Kolkman.The exhibition also contains weaving equipment and woven textiles of one of the Grandes Dames of textile archaeology, Grace Crowfoot (1877-1957), who lived and worked in the Middle East between 1909 and 1937. She was one of the first to reconstruct some of the textiles found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, and to do so, she constructed a simple frame. Both the frame and one of the replica textiles woven by Grace Crowfoot can be seen in the exhibition.
Part of the exhibition is dedicated to the work of 16+, a group of Dutch weavers who specialize in using looms with sixteen or more shafts. The textiles produced by this group are very varied, from small to large items, some of them are even woven with copper threads. These pieces are new and especially woven for the 'Week van het Weven'.
The exhibition opens on Monday 26th May 2014 for the general public and during the national Week van het Weven (27th May until 1 June) the TRC is open every day including the weekend.
