Textile Production and Representation: From Pre-to Postmodernity will be held at the Netherlands Institute, Athens, Greece, May 6 - 8, 2026. Speakers at this three-day, interdisciplinary conference will address textile production and representation from the premodern period to the present. The conference features contributions on historical and contemporary textile production, from harvesting materials (i.e. wool, linen, wood fiber, recycled materials, plastics), to processing, creation, and design, as well as papers that address uses of textiles and how they circulate through private and domestic economies, industry, and markets. Speakers will also address the above topics and their representation in various media, from painting to literature and film, to the use of textiles in political activism. In taking an interdisciplinary approach to textiles, and allowing for extended historical perspectives on their production, this conference aims to bring to light new connections between modes of production and ways of thinking about them at various junctures over several centuries.  

Program

May 6, 2025

9:00 – 9:30

Registration and Welcome

9:30 - 11:00                Textiles in the Ancient World        

Chair: Joyce Goggin (University of Amsterdam)

“Between Ἀθηνά Παρθένος and Ἄρτεμις Λυσίζωνος: Archetypical Images, Weaving Tools and Layers of Perception of Women in Classical Antiquity”

Sophia Tsourinaki (SEN Heritage Looms)

“Time and Textiles from Ancient Greece to Present Day”

Marie Louise Nosch, Ulla Ræbild and Else Skjold  (Dansh Royal Academy)

“Feeling through the Fibres: A Sensory Approach to the Textile Chaîne Opératoire on Crete”

Aster Van Campenhout (University of Leuven)

11:00 – 12:00             Early Modern Textiles

Chair: Joyce Goggin (University of Amsterdam)

Carey Fleiner (University of Winchester)

“But where are your spinning wheels?”: 9^th-century, Textiles, Experimental Archaeology, and Public Engagement at the Campus Galli, Germany”

Cecilia Charlton (Glasgow School of Art)

“Folk Weaving of the Scottish Highlands and Islands: A Tradition Obscured by Mist and Myth”

12:30 – 13:30                         LUNCH

13:30 – 15:00                         Embroidery

Chair: Darcy Zuiderdijk (University of Amsterdam)

“Embroidered Code: Bia Davou’s Feminist Systems of Language and Labour”

Irene Gerogianni (Athens School of Fine Arts)

“Ideal Expectations, Divergent Trajectories: Tracing the Biographies of Embroidered Handiwork through Ethnographic Research and Artistic Practice”

Anna Bonarou (Independent Researcher)

Vasilis Gokas (Visual Artist)

“What’s in a Name? The ‘Tanagra’ Embroideries”

Linda Welters (University of Rhode Island)     

15:00 – 16:30             Textiles and Trade

Chair: Susan Marshall (Politecnico di Milano)

“The Silk That Shouldn’t Have Been There (But Was): Fashion at the Edge and the Reconfiguration of Centres and Peripheries in the 17^th century”

Mario Grassi (University of Padua)

“Ottoman Chios as an Integrated Model of Global Textile Production and Distribution”

Nikolas Vryzidis (University of West Attica)

Tatiana Markaki (University of Amsterdam)

“The Circulation and Use of Textiles in Domestic Spaces: Early Modern Crete

16:30   - 16:45             BREAK

16:45 – 18:00             Textile/Tactile          

Chair: Carey Fleiner (University of Winchester)

Casey Jenkins “Casting Off My Womb (2013)”

Lorena Berrueco Rodriguez (Vrije Universiteit)

“Aromatory Experiences: Aroma as Textile”

Sarah Artt (Napier University)

“At the Speed of the Hand”

Alejandra Ortiz de Zevallos (PUCP, UPC)

18:00 – 19:00                         Reception

19:00                          Dinner at Greek Stories www.greekstories.gr

May 7, 2026

9:00 – 10:30               Textile/Tactile

Chair: Ranee Kaur (Independent Scholar)

“Wearing”

Elizabeth Duffy (Roger Williams University)

“Linen Reverie: A Silent Reconnection with Materiality”

Carlotta Luisa Kelber (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

“From Earth to Body: Rethinking Temporality and Craft Through Mud Silk in the Age of Fast Fashion”

Andy Honpong (MRes Royal College of Art)

10:30 – 11:30             Keynote

Title: “TBA”

Joanne Turney (University of Southampton)

Chair: Joyce Goggin (University of Amsterdam)

11:30 – 11:45             SHORT BREAK

11:45 – 12:45             Textiles and Education

Chair: Fieke Tuinder (Independent Scholar)

“Creative Collaborations: Making Weaving a Design Profession in Denmark”

Annika Skaarup Larsen (Design Museum, Denmark)

“Safeguarding the Future of Greek Craftsmanship: A Pilot Vocational Program in Weaving”

Anna Karatzani (University of West Attica)

12:45 – 13:30                         LUNCH

13:30 - 14:30             Indigenous Textiles

Chair: Karen King (Independent Researcher)

“Indigenous Textile Production in the Colonized World”

Adriana Abril-Ortiz (KU Leuven)

“Textile Artisans in Roman Hispania:  Iconographic Analysis of the ‘Few’ but Valuable Representations”

Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez (Universidad de Granada)

Raquel Castelo Ruano (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid).

14:30 – 15:00             BREAK

15:00 – 16:30             Knitting and Nation

Chair: Kieran Gaya (University College Dublin)

“Wartime Knitting: Perspectives from the Indian Subcontinent c.1914-1940”

Pragya Sharma (University of Brighton)

“Needles for the Nation: Women’s Magazines and Wartime Knitting in Italy during the Second World War”

Isabella Campagnol (Istituto Marangoni)

“The Rise of Young Knitwear Designers: Craft, Community, and Personal Expression in Contemporary Russian Fashion”

Liudmila Aliabieva (HSE Art and Design School)

16:30   - 17:30            Texts and Textiles

Chair:

“Who’s Afraid of Dionysus? Public and Private Identity in Late Antique Egyptian Textiles”

Felix Townley Bakewell (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)

“Woven Together: Reparative Retelling in Contemporary Dramatizations of the Trojan War Mythos”

Anna-Rose Shack (Universität Freiburg)

18:30                          Dinner at Byzantino https://www.vyzantinorestaurant.gr/en/

May 8, 2026

9:00 – 10:00               Textile Therapy        

Chair: Alejandra Ortiz de Zevallos (PUCP, UPC)           

“Reframing Textile Innovation through Care”

April Mandrona (NSCAD)

Shakara Joseph (NSCAD)

“Threads of Care and Trauma: Knitting as a Representation of Female Identity During Layoffs in Chinese Crime Drama The Long Season”

Elissa  Wang (University of Southampton)

10:00 – 11:00             Textiles and Politics 

Chair: Joyce Goggin (University of Amsterdam)

“The Soft Art of Aircraft”

Lily Ford (Independent Scholar)

“Khadi: The Freedom Fabric”

Ranee Kaur Banerjee (Independent Scholar)

11:00 – 11:30             BREAK

11:30 – 13:00             Textiles and Theology

Chair: Tatiana Markaki (University of Amsterdam)

“The Knitting Madonna: Theology, Gender, and Material Culture in Marian Iconography (14th-17th Centuries)”

Caterina Picco (University of Genoa)

“Spinning a Holy Yarn: Patterns of Textile Production, Disability, and Sanctity in Late-Medieval Netherlandish Sisterbooks”

Godelinde Perk (Tampere University)

13:00 – 13:30             LUNCH

13:30 - 14:30              Wool

Chair: Godelinde Perk (Tampere University)

“Wool and Status: Climate Control and Staying Warm in Habitat”

Kieran Gaya (University College Dublin)

“Woven Lustre: The Materiality of the Leiden Woolen Mixed Fabric Grein (1580-1650)”

Sara Wieman (Independent Scholar)

14:30 – 16:00             Networks of Influence

Chair: Kate Farley (Norwich University of the Arts)

“Resisting Boundaries: Bridging the 'Craft-Art' Divide in Japanese and Indonesian Textile Geographies”

Arlene Dwiasti Soemardi (Textile and Craft Designer)

“Patterns of Form: Indonesian Textiles Shaping Paul Poiret’s Draped Silhouettes”

Abby Lillethun (Montclair State University)

“From Kuba to Cubism”

Susan Marshall (Politecnico di Milano)

16:00 – 16:30             BREAK

16:30 – 17:30             Mending

Chair: Sarah Artt (Napier University)

“When Mending and Design Meet. Designing a Strategy for Amateur Mending Design”

Iryna Kucher (DSKD)

“...the first step is mending your trousers... and then we're saving the world”: Upcycling as a

Form of Quiet Activism”

Tetyana Solovey (University of Manchester)

17:30 – 18:30             Textiles and Printing

Chair: Joyce Goggin (University of Amsterdam)

“19th-century Block and Screen-print Production to AI: Wallpaper and Textiles”

Kate Farley (Norwich University of the Arts)

“Pattern Books as Portals: Exploring Natural Dye Printing Across Time and Context”

Caroline Raybould (Birmingham City University)

18:30                           Closing Remarks

19:00                          Dinner at Estia  https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g189400-d1436755-Reviews-Estia_Cafe_Restaurant-Athens_Attica.html