“Traditional Textiles from Central and Eastern Europe”

Call for Papers for the Workshop Traditional Textiles from Central and Eastern Europe

Local Organizer: Muzeul Textilelor, from Băița, Hunedoara County, in collaboration with ASTRA Museum, Sibiu, and the National Museum of Romanian History, Bucharest, Romania.

September 25th—Muzeul Textilelor, Building B, Băița, Hunedoara County

September 26th—Muzeul Textilelor, Building B, Băița, and Building C, Hărțăgani

September 27th—ASTRA Museum, Sibiu

Workshop Description

Traditional textiles preserved in museum collections but also waiting to be discovered in the peasant houses in Central and Eastern Europe represent an extremely valuable part of the European heritage.

The workshop aims to enrich and better correlate the existing knowledge on traditional textiles in this area by bringing together professionals from different countries, and with various backgrounds, to disseminate, discuss and experience theoretical and practical information related to this topic. Within the event it is expected that participants will discover the common features of Central and Eastern Europe traditional textiles, and reveal the specific characteristics of the various groups of population. Through this workshop, local organizers will also offer an in-depth view of Romanian textiles’ typology and pertaining technologies, and hope to collect and discuss similar features related to textiles from the neighboring countries.

The first day of this workshop will provide interaction among participants, presentations and discussions related to Central and Eastern European traditional textiles specificities. Discussions will continue on specific artifacts, and reference materials of fibers, dyes, woven and ornamentation examples belonging to the Muzeul Textilelor collection.

A practical session related to the traditional technologies of textile fibers and dyeing processes will be included during the second day of the workshop. These activities will take place in the original environment of the Muzeul Textilelor’s 1902 farm located in Hărțăgani village (situated in the pitoresc Apuseni Mountains).

The third day of the workshop will give participants a view of the textile collections belonging to the ASTRA Museum in Sibiu, and the opportunity to interact with a larger group of professionals interested in this subject.                                   

Organizers: Florica Zaharia, Irina Petroviciu, Iulia Teodorescu

Keynote speakers: Erilda Selaj & Ana Ursescu

Group size: 15 – 20 people

Official language: English

Deadline for registration: September 1st, 2023

For registration, please use the link below https://forms.gle/D3tTqnNmXG154rJ7A

We welcome twenty minutes or short presentations of ten minutes related to the traditional textile heritage of Central and Eastern Europe, including subjects interrelated to textiles’ history, technology, preservation and conservation.

Cancellations: Cancellations must be submitted in writing to petroviciu@yahoo.com, no later than September 15th, 2023

Suggested accommodation:

Pensiunea Ana, http://anachiscadaga.ro/, in Chișcadaga village, 9 km distance from Băița;

Hotel Wien, http://www.hotelwien.ro/;

Hotel President, http://www.president-deva.ro/ in Deva city, 24 km from Băița;

Pensiunea Eva, https://www.infopensiuni.ro/cazare-soimus/pensiuni-soimus/pensiunea-eva, in Șoimus, near Deva, 19 km from Băița.

 About the organizers

Florica Zaharia, Conservator Emerita of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and former Head of the Department of Textile Conservation at The Met. Since 2017 she is the Director and Co-owner of the Muzeul Textilelor. Dr. Zaharia had published and lectured extensively on the subject of textile preservation, conservation and display. She curated and coordinated the installation of several exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Muzeul Textilelor, and at other museums and gallery in the United States and in Europe.

Irina Petroviciu, Scientific researcher in the National Museum of Romanian History, Center of Research and Scientific Investigation. With more than 25 years of experience in heritage science, her research interest is focused on scientific investigation of organic materials in museum objects and much of her work has been dedicated to the analytical identification and characterization of natural and early synthetic dyes in textiles from Romanian collections. Dr. Petroviciu presented more than 90 contributions at national and international meetings and authored about 60 articles (35 as main author). She is an active member of the Dyes in History and Archaeology group. Between 2017 and 2020 she also served as associate lecturer at the National University of Arts, in Bucharest.

Iulia Teodorescu, textile restorer in the Department for Conservators and Restorers Training of ASTRA National Museum Complex, Sibiu, for almost 20 years. She was certified by the Romanian Ministry of Culture as expert in textile restoration, in 2013. Her responsibility in the ASTRA Museum involves studies of textile and related materials, traditional art crafts on textile and dyes, conservation and restoration of textile heritage, creation of specialized mounting supports for textiles display, and lectures as a trainer at different workshops that focus on this field. Also, she is directly involved in organizing courses and seminars, conferences, and workshops for the training of specialists in the country and sometimes from abroad. She coordinates bachelor and master thesis in textiles conservation, through the partnership between the museum and” Lucian Blaga” University in Sibiu.

Hemp Fibers
The Technological Transformation from Plant to Fabric

Workshop July 29th-August 2th, 2019
Muzeul Textilelor, Building C, Hărțăgani Village, No. 434, Hunedoara County, Romania

Contact
Florica Zaharia
Tel: 40 732 514 037
Emails: florica.t.zaharia@gmail.com or florica.zaharia@muzeultextilelor.org 
www.muzeultextilelor.org

 With this workshop the Muzeul Textilelor is launching a series of workshops focused on textile fibers and their traditional technologies. Through the workshops we offer high quality training programs in textile fibers to museum professionals, scholars, students and anyone who works with fibers or has a special interest in the subject.

Organizer: Muzeul Textilelor/Asociația Textile Heritage Preservation
Instructor: Florica Zaharia
Date: July 29th-August 2th, 2019 (five days)
Location: Muzeul Textilelor, Building C, Hărțăgani, Hunedoara County, România
Materials: Workshop fiber materials will be provided at the event
Recommended attire: Comfortable cloth and shoes, rain boots  
Group size: 10 – 12 people  
Official language: English
Workshop fees: 928.00 Euros per person. Admission fees include daily tea/coffee, lunch, workshop fiber materials, and a garden party to be held at the end of the workshop. 
Deadline for registration: July 1st, 2019
Early registration, 10% discount: May 15th, 2019
Please send your registration form  with a short CV to ana.dragus@muzeultextilelor.org. For registration please use the workshop registration form from here: ( REGISTRATION FORM )
Cancellations: Cancellations must be submitted in writing to ana.dragus@muzeultextilelor.org no later than July 10th
Suggested accommodation: Pensiunea Ana, http://anachiscadaga.ro/, in Chișcadaga village, 17km distance from Hărțăgani village; Hotel Wien, http://www.hotelwien.ro/; Hotel President, http://www.president-deva.ro/ in Deva city, 27 km from  Hărțăgani village; Pensiunea Eva, https://www.infopensiuni.ro/cazare-soimus/pensiuni-soimus/pensiunea-eva, in Șoimus, near Deva, 22 km from Hărțăgani village
Who should attend this workshop: Museum professionals, scholars, students and anyone who works with fibers or has a special interest in the subject.

Workshop Description
The traditional process of producing hemp fibers in Romania was perfected over generations to respond to the needs of multiple qualities of fabrics from which each family made holiday and everyday costumes, textiles for the interior, and textiles for farming activities. Each step of the technological process, from seed planting to weaving, and in between—harvesting, drying, retting, drying after retting, braking, combing, spinning, bleaching, and weaving are all essential moments in defining a specific quality of hemp fiber and its relationship with the hemp fabric.   All these procedures, beginning with hemp harvesting, will be studied and experienced during the five-day workshop. Participants will be able to build their own collection of systematically produced hemp fiber samples.
The workshop will be conducted using original tools, at a farm dating from 1902, and the work will be done as nearly as possible in the way it was done at the beginning of the 20th century, yet with a scientific approach. 

About the instructor
Dr. Florica Zaharia is Conservator Emerita of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Director and Co-owner of the Muzeul Textilelor. For twenty-eight years, Florica Zaharia was a member of the Department of Textile Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), thirteen years as Conservator in Charge of the Department, working with a group of world-renowned textile conservators. After her retirement from The Met in 2016, she returned to her native country, Romania, and opened the Muzeul Textilelor, in Băița and Hărțăgani, Hunedoara county, Romania. This is a private textile museum with a collection of approximately 12,000 pieces collected in Romania and worldwide by her and her family during the last four decades.  

Dr. Zaharia has researched, published, lectured, curated exhibitions, and taught on the subjects of textile conservation and preservation, textile materials and technology and Eastern European textiles. She conducted extensive research on hemp and wool fibers and their related technologies in Romania. Besides her PhD thesis, she has published in various journals and books, and has curated several exhibitions on her work. Among these are: Textile tradiționale din Transilvania tehnologie și estetică (Traditional Textiles from Transylvania—Technologies and Aesthetic.) Suceava, Accent Print, 2008 ; The Secret Life of Textiles: Plant Fibers; The Secret Life of Textiles: Animal Fibers at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016-2017 (lead curator); Carpathian Echoes—Traditional Textile Materials and Technologies in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania and Ukraine at the Ukrainian Museum in New York (lead curator,) and Textiles – Art and Necessity. Highlights of the Muzeul Textilelor Collection, at the Muzeul Textilelor, Băița, 2018. Dr. Zaharia has an M.A. with a specialization in tapestry and textile structure and design, and a Ph.D. in Visual Arts with a focus on textile materials and technologies, and their impact on artifacts’ aesthetic qualities. She earned her academic degrees from the National University of Art Nicolae Grigorescu in Bucharest. 

1. Samânță de cânepă (Hemp seeds.). Proiect de cercetare, 2018 (Research project, 2018). Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
2. Lan de cânepă (Hemp plants). Proiect de cercetare, 2018.(Research project, 2018) Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
3. Recoltarea cânepii de vară.(Harvesting the summer hemp) Proiect de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
4. Uscarea cânepii după recoltare. (Drying the harvested hemp) Proiect de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
5. Tăierea rădăcinilor cânepii de vară. (Removing the summer hemp’s roots) ProiectRetted de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
6. Cânepă uscată, pregătită pentru topit. (Dried hemp, ready for retting) Proiect de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
7. Topirea cânepii de vară. (Retting the summer hemp) Proiect de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
8. Topirea cânepii de vară, detaliu. (Retting the summer hemp, detail.) Proiect de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
9. Plantele de cânepă după topire. (Retted hemp) Proiect de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C
10. Uscarea cânepii după topire. (Drying the retted hemp) Proiect de cercetare, 2018. Muzeul Textilelor, Corp C