The recent Costume and Textiles Aotearoa New Zealand symposium was held in Dunedin Ōtepoti and it was based on the theme of “Fascination”.
Dunedin has a proud history and heritage of settlement and the symposium was held in Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. The event was split into two streams of presentations, one in the auditorium and the other in an annex dedicated to transport and travel. For some this meant walking between the two areas but that is no hardship when there is a whole museum to look at in passing. If things got too much, Lan Yuan, Dunedin Chinese Garden, a six-star Garden of International Significance, provided a surprising and welcome respite.
This year the talks ranged from Ancient Greek weaving through to silk samples from Tehera, from treasures in the Hocken Collections to dyeing wool with native plants, from an exploration of the role of the shoe in Greta Hedwig’s film Barbie to stories from an antique sampler. There were talks on adapting mannequins to fit fragile clothes (saws and drills featured) and a beautiful korero (talk) about a project that brought together a grower of flax (of the linen variety), harvesters and artists, who worked with aroha (love) and concern for the environment while they produced their respective works. As usual it was a fantastic variety of topics from which to choose and the two days of symposium passed quickly with plenty of food for thought.
In addition to these presentations there were also peripheral events. Outfits from the Eden Hore Collection were on display in the museum – more about that show in the next blog post – and the well-known Dunedin fashion label Nom*d (with its shop “Plume“) had a retrospective in the art gallery in town with a talk from its Creative Director, Margarita Robertson – images below. There was an open weaving and stitching event at the Dunedin Community Gallery, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Hocken Library, demonstrations in the Museum foyer along with the Otago Tapestry on display (photos at the end of this article), and lots of shops and the farmers’ market to visit.
It was a hugely enjoyable experience as always. In spite of weather causing havoc with travel plans resulting in speakers not being able to attend, the team at Toitū and the CTANZ committee members handled everything so well that any chaos was well-hidden. Thank you to all who worked so hard to make this event the success it was.
Note: CTANZ is a membership organisation and we are always looking for new members. If you are interested in joining please use this link to look at the options.
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