Curator: Professor Susan Rodgers, Sociology and Anthropology
Student docents: Tricia Giglio, '14; Martha Walters, '14; Hana Carey, '13
This January 24 – March 1, 2013, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery exhibition of ikat cloths from Indonesia and Malaysia displays over 40 of these remarkable textiles, both in their deeply ceremonial forms and in their vibrantly commercialized versions. Ikat is a ‘textile on the move’ today: moving across borders from Southeast Asia to different parts of the world, moving from ritual use to American fashion wear and other marketplace forms, moving from Asian villages to international museum and art collecting circuits. The exhibition focuses on ikats from eastern Indonesia, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Malaysia’s Sarawak state. Curator Susan Rodgers (anthropology, Holy Cross) and three Holy Cross student docents (Hana Carey, Tricia Giglio, Martha Walters) did fieldwork in summer 2012 to explore the exhibition’s “transnational ikat” themes in Bali, Indonesia and Kuching, Sarawak; their research was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon program at Holy Cross. This website (authored by all four researchers) reports their findings about this rapidly, exuberantly commercializing Asian cloth. The website also provides introductory background information about ikat.
Photo by Matthew Atanian
Other photographs in website:
fieldwork images by curator and docents, 2012, 2010; Rodgers fieldwork photograph 1986; gallery photographs by Roger Hankins; images from S. Rodgers, 1985, Power and Gold.
Acknowledgments: This website would not have been possible without the untiring and expert guidance of Margaret Nelson, Dean's Office and Educational Technology, Holy Cross. Thanks also are due to Dean Timothy R. Austin, and Professors Daniel Klinghard, Ann Marie Leshkowich, and Karen Turner (Mellon program, Sociology and Anthropology, Asian Studies) for constant support for our entire project. The student docents' summer 2012 fieldwork was made possible by fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon program for faculty/student collaborative work in the humanities and social sciences at Holy Cross. Grateful thanks as well to Garrity Chair funding, for our textile lessons at Threads of Life. Cantor Art Gallery director Roger Hankins, museum preparator Timothy Johnson, and gallery coordinator Paula Rosenblum also supported our website work every step of the way.