Burkett and Beyond
Lead Research Organisation:
University of St Andrews
Department Name: Philos Anthrop and Film Studies
Abstract
The Burkett and Beyond project will conduct research on the Burkett felt textile collection at the Horniman museum, examining the time gap between collection in the middle east and Afghanistan (1960 - 79) and today, in the light of subsequent rupture and war. The project aims to bring Burkett's research up to date during the recent unique period of improved relations with Iran.
The project will draw on the collection to explore felt textile practice in the region today, using innovation methodological and curatorial techniques, including apprenticeship and an artefact centred approach, to build understanding of the role of felt in people's life-worlds, and trace cultural changes over the past 35-40 years by eliciting people's social memories and life histories.
The acquisition brought felt, a workaday fabric of society, to scholars' attention as characteristic domestic felt textiles of both nomadic and settled communities of the middle East and Central Asia, as a time when it was beginning to fall out of use. Burkett's subsequent exhibition and her volume The Art of the Felt Maker (1979) made felt accessible to scholars and laypeople alike. World events since particularly the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran Revolution (both in 1979) along with ensuing turmoil have made it impossible to follow-up this initial research in the region during the subsequent 35 years.
The project has an ethno-historical focus. Characteristic styles, techniques and imagery in the collection identify artefacts with specific communities who have dwelt in or travelled across the region over the past 5-10 centuries, including nomadic Bakhtiari, Lurs, Qashqai, Turkmen along with settles communities including Tehran, Samiabad, Shiraz and Ardabil which produced through guild system. It is anticipated it may be possible to trace artefacts in the collection to specific workshops, journeyman and nomadic groups, through both time and space, while revealing contemporary and changing practices among groups who still use and produce felt.
Alongside standard anthropological methods of participant observation, interviews and gathering life histories, other innovative methods will be encouraged including learning techniques through apprenticeship to explore the mechanism of skill and motif transmission between family and workshop.
Tracing historical artefacts' production and use during the turbulent period since collection in relation to contemporary practice will benefit both museology and the anthropology of textiles. In comparing the organisation of artisanry between nomadic and workshop production, and establishing intergenerational perspectives on the changing role and value of domestic textiles the project will examine the changing the rift between collection and today. In profiling the nomadic material, the project will also highlight works of groups whose decorative arts rarely receive attention. This will make the Burkett collection more usable, providing a context for its intellectual interpretation, along with anthropological insights into processes of change and continuity; the impact of conflict on domestic craft production; and the relationship between heritage and creativity. All these themes are significant to both partners in the collaboration.
The project will draw on the collection to explore felt textile practice in the region today, using innovation methodological and curatorial techniques, including apprenticeship and an artefact centred approach, to build understanding of the role of felt in people's life-worlds, and trace cultural changes over the past 35-40 years by eliciting people's social memories and life histories.
The acquisition brought felt, a workaday fabric of society, to scholars' attention as characteristic domestic felt textiles of both nomadic and settled communities of the middle East and Central Asia, as a time when it was beginning to fall out of use. Burkett's subsequent exhibition and her volume The Art of the Felt Maker (1979) made felt accessible to scholars and laypeople alike. World events since particularly the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran Revolution (both in 1979) along with ensuing turmoil have made it impossible to follow-up this initial research in the region during the subsequent 35 years.
The project has an ethno-historical focus. Characteristic styles, techniques and imagery in the collection identify artefacts with specific communities who have dwelt in or travelled across the region over the past 5-10 centuries, including nomadic Bakhtiari, Lurs, Qashqai, Turkmen along with settles communities including Tehran, Samiabad, Shiraz and Ardabil which produced through guild system. It is anticipated it may be possible to trace artefacts in the collection to specific workshops, journeyman and nomadic groups, through both time and space, while revealing contemporary and changing practices among groups who still use and produce felt.
Alongside standard anthropological methods of participant observation, interviews and gathering life histories, other innovative methods will be encouraged including learning techniques through apprenticeship to explore the mechanism of skill and motif transmission between family and workshop.
Tracing historical artefacts' production and use during the turbulent period since collection in relation to contemporary practice will benefit both museology and the anthropology of textiles. In comparing the organisation of artisanry between nomadic and workshop production, and establishing intergenerational perspectives on the changing role and value of domestic textiles the project will examine the changing the rift between collection and today. In profiling the nomadic material, the project will also highlight works of groups whose decorative arts rarely receive attention. This will make the Burkett collection more usable, providing a context for its intellectual interpretation, along with anthropological insights into processes of change and continuity; the impact of conflict on domestic craft production; and the relationship between heritage and creativity. All these themes are significant to both partners in the collaboration.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Stephanie Bunn (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Adil Iqbal (Student) |