Does one’s culture precede, accompany, or follow migratory human movement? How do material objects - their material components, method of construction, visual design, utilitarian purpose – cross borders? How does a Dorito bag end up in Kurdistan or a Kurdish rug in the United States? And is Kurdistan a place or a culture that is expressed (partially) through material goods?
Material Cultures are often looked at for historical purposes, but day to day in our personal lives, material goods offer paths to memories and emotional connections, as well as imagining the future. What evolves in the time and space between the point of origin and current location, from the original situation to the current circumstance? What changes occur between homeland and host-land?
Using clothing, fabrics, rugs, and mostly found objects from her Kurdish homeland communities, Nuveen Barwari delves into the layers of these questioning spaces addressing personal, cultural, and geopolitical perspectives as informed by her life experiences.
Saleema Waraich, Associate Professor of Art History at Skidmore College, will join Nuveen in this conversation about what this all means in relation to art, design, and trade – historically, interpersonally, and geopolitically.
Parts of the evening will be interactive, and time will be reserved for questions and dialogue. All participants are invited to bring a personal textile – a piece of clothing or anything made of fabric, thread, or yarn – which may be referred to over the course of the evening. Participants will also be invited to a community creator lab, using their textiles to collaboratively create an installation piece expressing “A Point of Belonging in the Diasporic Community.”
Although it is often a mix of factors pushing and pulling people to leave their countries of birth, historically, the most common factor has been economics, as migrants sought better economic prospects for themselves and their families. The pursuit, acquisition and production of material goods has also forced human migration (i.e. enslavement). Today more than ever people are leaving their countries of birth due to war, persecution, and climate related natural disasters. Is material cultures’ flow predicated on human migration by force or choice?
Our interactions with material objects – a bookmark, a scarf, a chair, an arched door … a flag – weave through our lives, communities, and countries; the material goods providing the warp and weft of our cultural identities.
All Are Welcome Here and we look forward to seeing, hearing, and speaking with you at “Warp & Weft…”
This program is a community classroom conversation sponsored by the Saratoga Immigration Coalition, Skidmore College Department of Art History, Caffe Lena and C.R.E.A.T.E Community Studios.
