> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Reference:: https://garlandmag.com/loop/bombay-and-batik-gender-and-nationhood-in-modernist-textiles/ >Date:: 2022-06-22 >Tags:: #warp/talk #textiles #India #USA #Indonesia >WeftLinks:: [[Reinventing the Wheel]] [[Western craft is inspired by Eastern cultures]] ### Summary This is the third event we've hosted in partnership with the [[Journal of Modern Craft]] . The first was on the craft of mask wearing and the second on craft and nationalism with Pelsue Forrest and Xu Wu. The [latest issue](https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfmc20/current) contains several fascinating articles about female modernist textile artists of the twentieth century. **Antonia Behan** is Assistant Professor of Design History and Material Cultures in a Global World at Queen's University, in Kingston, Canada. She has written about the relationship between modernism and Arts and Crafts, particularly in relation to Bauhaus weavers and particularly Ethel Mairet. Her article has something very important to say about the concept of biotechnics connected science and culture. **Vishal Khandelwal** is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Department of History of Art and Architecture, specialising in modern art of South Asia. His article follows the Indian textile artist Nelly Sethna as she moves between the USA, particularly the Cranbrook Academy of Art and her home in Bombay. He argues for a prominent role of textile art in Michigan and Bombay. **Michael Mamp** is now at Louisiana State University. He researches the contributions of women and the LGBTQI community to US fashion. His article is about Ethel Wallace brought batik into modern fashion in a context of Javanese orientalism centred in Greenwich Village. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9gLloAwl4E8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> In the discussion , there was great interest in how these three textile artists made their way in the world. They were working without the kind of support that is available today through universities for studio practice. They were able to appeal to an art market and sometimes philanthropy. Though in the case of Ethel Wallace, she ended up as a pauper. In the case of Nelly Sethna, she had to deal with the hierarchy imposed under British colonialism that placed fine about applied arts. The research of these three academics served to inform us of craft practices in the early twentieth-century that have great relevance to what is being made today. This relates to contemporary themes of biophilia, materiality, and cultural dialogue.