Textile Society of America 2018 Symposium, Pan Global Exhibition Highlights

Abstract

Abstract The 2018 Textile Society of America (TSA) symposium, “Social Fabric: From Deep Local to Pan Global,” was a marked contrast from the previous symposium, with a more robust focus on indigenous and aboriginal textiles. Held in Canada’s progressive Vancouver, British Columbia, the planned scope and inclusivity of symposium events included notable First Nations speakers, site visits, art exhibitions, and plenary sessions which interrogated colonial histories and helped steer away the ethnographic gaze prevalent in the academic textile field. Noteworthy events included a fashion show presented by Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week, the exhibition Arts of Resistance: Politics and the Past in Latin America at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, the keynote speech by Tlingit weaver Meghann/Jaad O’Brien, and the Intertwined exhibition of textile artwork by faculty, staff and students of Emily Carr University.