Hidden Complexities. Unfolding Miao Women's Textile Skills

Abstract

A closer look at the dense surfaces of Miao women’s clothing, praised for their “exuberance of colours” and “explosion of patterns”, reveals complex skills: knowledge of the raw materials and their process-ing, command of the interplay between materiality and technique, colours and shapes, and great proficiency with needle and thread. Miao women communicate and interact through their textiles and utilise their craft as a means of self-representation and self-assurance. This brochure and the exhibition on which it is based offer vivid access to this textile knowledge in its many dimensions.