Hemp Fibers

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 20^th 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.