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MALAGASY TEXTILES
Lecturer: Julia Brennan and Sarah Fee
Time: 3:00 PM
Date: Sunday, March 5, 2006
Location: Room 200, Mary Graydon Center, American University
Members are invited to bring related items, old or new, to show.
A large island situated at the crossroads of the Indian
Ocean, Madagascar is home to a varied and exciting
textile tradition that contains strands of both Africa and
Asia. Yet it remains little known to the outside world.
This talk will explore the rich history of women’s
weaving in the island, which ranged from plain raffia
smocks to sumptuous royal silks—and the social life of
cloth (lambas) that has served as dress, marriage gift and
offerings to ancestors. Fisiky ty mahaondaty: “Cloth is
what makes people,” the Malagasy say.
The speakers will transport us to an encounter with a
conservation project that seeks to preserve this cultural
link for the only remaining 19th century collection of
lambas in Madagascar. Sited at the former Prime
Minister’s Palace, a team of ten from four regional
museums works with outdoor wash tanks, fragments of
textiles, leaking roofs, no electricity, and a four week
deadline to prepare for the first national exhibition.
An anthropologist by training, Sarah Fee has spent over
four years in southern Madagascar studying textile arts
and ceremonial gift exchange. The author of numerous
works on these topics, in 2002 she curated the exhibit “Gift and Blessings, the Textile Arts of Madagascar” at
the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.
Julia Brennan, owner of Textile Conservation Services,
is based in Washington DC. She worked at the Textile
Museum for six years in the conservation department
before developing an independent business on her own.
Her work takes her to places where conservation is much
needed, like Madagascar and Bhutan.
Directions to American University:
From Virginia, cross the Key Bridge into Georgetown,
turn left at M Street, and go right (north) on Foxhall
Road. Continue on Foxhall until it ends at Nebraska
Avenue. Turn east (right) and continue along Nebraska.
From Maryland and DC, take either Wisconsin or
Massachusetts Avenues and turn west onto Nebraska.
The Mary Graydon Center is on the main campus of
American University, North of Nebraska Avenue. (For a
campus map see www.american.edu/maps/campus.htm.)
The center is in the third row of buildings north of
Nebraska Avenue, east of Bender Library.
FREE PARKING IS AVAILABLE IN THE
NEBRASKA AVENUE PARKING LOT, on the south
side of Nebraska Avenue (between Massachusetts and
New Mexico Avenues). From Nebraska Avenue, turn
onto New Mexico Avenue. Enter the lot from New
Mexico Avenue, park as close to the entrance as possible
and cross Nebraska Avenue to the campus.
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