We are a community of researchers who met because we share certain interests and concerns. we decided to create this site in order to make our journey visible, to share it with new voices and to find out where it will lead us.
Dorothy Armstrong
Dr Dorothy Armstrong is May Beattie Visiting Fellow in Carpet Studies, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Dorothy is a historian of material culture, with a particular interest in the textiles of South, Central and West Asia. Her recent research has focused on the way ‘oriental’ carpets were put to work in the colonial period to support the values and agenda of the colonisers. Before taking up the May Beattie Fellowship, she taught Material Histories of Asia for the V&A/Royal College of Art History of Design Programme.
Aida Balafkan
Aida Balafkan is currently a PhD student in department of Anthropology at UCL, University of London. Building on her interests in sensory and generational memory, her current research is concerned with the experiences and memories of Azeri-Turkish weavers living in the Southern borderlands of the Republic of Georgia. It seeks to understand how weaving and memories around it offer insight about this particular place and community.
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JONATHAN CLEAVER
Dr Jonathan Cleaver is a textile researcher and weaver. Jonathan studied Tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art and gained an MLitt in Dress and Textiles Histories at the University of Glasgow. His PhD, awarded by the University of Glasgow, generated fresh perspectives on the interrelationship of industrial carpet design and weaving technology using the archives of the manufacturer James Templeton and Company, Glasgow. His research into the cultural histories of British carpet production continues to be informed by his prior professional experience as a Master Tapestry Weaver with Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh.
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Ludovica Matarozzo
Ludovica Matarozzo studied the history of contemporary art at the Ca' Foscary University, Venice, and Curatorial Practices at the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Turin. She has held positions in several Italian institutions, including the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art. Currently, she serves a Production Assistant at the École des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, France. Her research focuses on the delineation of alternative narratives on textile art and artistic practices that foster innovative forms of collaboration with the public.
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Myriem Naji
Myriem Naji is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, University College London, where she earned her PhD in 2008. In 2011, she curated an exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS: Weaving the Threads of Livelihood: The Aesthetic and Embodied Knowledge of Sirwa Weavers. This exhibition aimed to highlight the knowledge and skills of contemporary weavers. Her doctoral dissertation examines the lives and livelihoods of female weavers and their families in the Sirwa region. It explores embodied knowledge and craft production, with a theoretical emphasis on gender and value creation. She specializes in the anthropology of textiles, with special reference to the Maghreb. Her research interests include the anthropology of the body and techniques, knowledge and craft, material culture and creative processes. Her research is based on extensive fieldwork in southern Morocco.
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Anna Portisch
Anna Portisch completed a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and a postdoctoral fellowship from Brunel University. Her doctoral research concerned the Kazakh minority in western Mongolia, with a focus on women’s domestic production of felt carpets (syrmaq) and other embroidered and woven textiles, and the learning processes involved in this domestic crafts tradition. The PhD was based on a year’s fieldwork during which Anna learned the techniques involved in syrmaq making. She has guest-curated exhibitions on Kazakh craftswomen, the yurt and its soft furnishings (The Brunei Gallery, SOAS, The Quadrangle in Kent and the Constance Howard Gallery at Goldsmiths in London). Her current research delves into the history of Inner and Central Asia.
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Farniyaz Zaker
Farniyaz Zaker is an artist and lecturer in Persian studies at Oxford University's faculty's of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Her research and practice deal with the history and theory of architecture and textiles with regard to bodily, societal, spatial and linguistic practices. In 2015 she completed her DPhil in Fine Arts at the University of Oxford with the support of St John's College's Lamb and Flagg Graduate Scholarship. She has been a visiting Research Fellow at UCL Institute of Advanced Studies and a Junior Teaching Fellow at the Ashmolean Museum's Karisis Fellowship Programme.