Silk and Sericulture: Beauty Inspired by a Social Contract
Ina Asim, PhD
Associate Professor, Pre-Modern Chinese History
University of Oregon
​5 June, 2021     
9:30 - 11:00 am PDT
​
A recent humanities project funded by the Mellon Foundation connected objects in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art,  Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Oregon in a digital exhibition.  The digital exhibition titled “The Artful Fabric of Collecting” includes objects most collected by founder of the art museum, Gertrud Bass Warner, and will focus on those that reveal aspects of the role of collectors in preserving art.

In this talk with First Saturday PDX,  Professor Ina Asim will show us how Gertrud Bass Warner collected precious silk textiles at a time when a sharp distinction was made between fine arts and textiles in the West, a categorization that only slowly recedes. She also collected printed illustrated manuals that reflect the seasonal works in agriculture and sericulture in traditional China. Such genre scenes had originally been commissioned and collected by China’s emperors, works of art intended to remind the ruler that his legacy hinged on his ability to protect a balanced society in which the two pillars of a flourishing economy were supported and allowed to thrive. The art of collecting with passion and insight has preserved silk textiles and the documentation of silk production for us. Contemporary technology helps to explore both categories of objects across physical distance unencumbered by the protective devices necessary to ensure their physical conservation.  

​About the speaker:
Ina Asim is Associate Professor of Chinese History at the University of Oregon. Her interest in archaeology and the history of China’s material culture developed from her work on Song dynasty tombs and the urban culture of pre-modern China. She has published often and has involvement in various film documentary projects.   
See more info here
Further Reading Recommendations:
​
Pictures of Tilling and Weaving – by Rosyln Lee Hammers
https://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Tilling-Weaving-Labor-Technology/dp/9888028634
 
Picturing Technology in China – by Peter Golas
https://www.amazon.com/Picturing-Technology-China-Earliest-Nineteenth/dp/9888208152
 
Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China - by Francesca Bray (Author/ Editor), Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann (Author/ Editor), Georges Metailie (Author/ Editor)
https://www.amazon.com/Graphics-Production-Technical-Knowledge-Leidensia/dp/9004160639

A Fashionable Century - by Rachel Silberstein
https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295747187/a-fashionable-century/ 
A video of this presentation can be seen here    ​
Join us after the webinar from 11 - 11:30am in our First Saturday PDX Tea House to further the discussion and online social visiting.  Bring your cup of tea! 
​(Separate  access link for this will be provided in your single registration for this event.)
This presentation is offered via Zoom Webinar:
  • Internet access is required.
  • Join from computer, tablet, or smartphone. 
  • Please Register Here to receive the links to join the webinar and our Tea House in the same confirmation email
  • See our Zoom page for information on how to connect to the event.  
Our program series is supported by Portland State University's Institute for Asian Studies, the Northwest China Council and is free and open to the public.