Time & Venue: <\/strong>Sunday 22\u2013Saturday 28, Danala Studios (Ground floor)<\/p>\n\n\n\nCreative works and exhibitions are open to everyone every day throughout the Congress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Timeless Threads: Exploring The Legacy of Sustainable Indian Textiles<\/strong>
Moumita Dhar, Research Officer, Assistant Curator, National Museum, New Delhi, India<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nSculptures, temple reliefs, and numismatic artefacts provide ample insights into the textiles and adornments of ancient India. Evidence of early textiles can be traced to the Indus Valley Civilisation (3500\u20131900 BCE) through depictions on sculptures and material remains. Manuscripts and inscriptions further enrich our understanding, while medieval paintings, including Rajasthani and Mughal miniatures, vividly illustrate diverse textile traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Timeless Threads<\/em> explores various sustainable textile practices of ancient India, delving into their origins, history, and enduring legacy. It will highlight fashion and aesthetics, showcasing how traditional styles and patterns can inspire contemporary designs and modern styling, and visitors will have the opportunity to touch and feel different textile pieces, allowing them to connect physically with these ancient practices. Timeless Threads<\/em> aims to raise awareness about these age-old, eco-friendly textile traditions, encourage the adoption of natural materials over synthetic ones, and spark creativity in reimagining ancient aesthetics for today\u2019s fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAn Excavated Life<\/strong>
Christine Finn, archaeologist, journalist, artist<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nI have spent nearly half of my life excavating the archaeologist and writer, Jacquetta Hawkes. This time, I present a concise retrospective of my own life, that of a 65 year old writer, journalist, archaeologist, and artist. The mixed-media exhibition is a visual and auditory memoir, showing the evolution of my projects, as happenstance artworks, and formal exhibitions. From leavehomestay.com, to inspirations as diverse as retro technology, Seamus Heaney, WW2 Occupation, old school newsrooms, 19th c Arctic auroras, the Festival of Britain, family histories, Mount Carmel, and the Scottish-Australian painter, Ian Fairweather. Presented as a context it aims to encourage WAC participants to find common themes around digging, rescue, vulnerability, demise, fragments, risk, and revelation, within the course of an excavated life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About the Artist: I have been funded by, amongst others, Arts Council England (seven times), British Council, Henry Moore Foundation, the Royal Literary Fund, and Jersey Arts Trust. I am a Fellow of the Society of<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Antiquaries of London, and a member of the National Union of Journalists, and the Society of Authors. I contribute to the Times and Sunday Times, and BBC national radio. I have had formal associations with the Oxford University, Bradford University, and Flinders University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Communicating What Has Been Lost<\/strong>
Sahoko Aki, Artist, International Research Association for Art and Archaeology<\/em>
Yasuyuki Yoshida, Morioka University, International Research Association for Art and Archaeology<\/em>
Katsuyuki Okamura, Osaka City Museums, International Research Association for Art and Archaeology<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nAn exhibition from the International Research Association for Art and Archaeology, and the Power of the Invisible<\/em> Project (2018-2024): Explorations to Stimulate Interest in Cultural Heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBehind the works exhibited here lie two contrasting types of loss: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n- Overwhelming loss caused by a major disaster that occurs within just a few days in a very specific region. The present works relate in part to the Great East Japan Earthquake (March 11, 2011).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Gradual loss that happens slowly everywhere at an almost imperceptible pace, alongside the advancement of civilisation and technology and throughout human history. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Archaeologists study artefacts and remains that survive after both kinds of loss, discovering human activities that transcend the physical materials in which evidence is embedded. The artists who participated in this project alongside archaeologists could experience in different ways the same materials and archaeological sites, moving back and forth between people\u2019s memories of the past and the present. Their artistic responses resonate with contemporary audiences by revealing phenomena that are ambiguous, transient, and difficult to put into words. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through its various explorations involving artists and archaeologists, the Power of the Invisible project created space and time for many people to pause in their present-day life, look back, and experience the past in their own ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Artworks on Display:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n(A) Connecting: Minamisoma, the landscape at your fingertips.
Fumio Obara, 2024. Wood sculpture, Japanese catalpa wood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born blind, Obara knows the world in a different way to the rest of us. Here he has carved the Minami-soma landscape of Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan, out of wood, collecting tactile memories of his whole-body senses. The parts can be seen as disparate or assembled into four-dimensional landscape, with the time dimension continuing into the future as well. The pillar that holds together the memory of the fragmented landscape is a single borehole core, named the \u2018rod of time\u2019, based on an actual core that Obara has palpated with local archaeologists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(B) Knowing the Land: Tsunan Jomon Map
Sahoko Aki, 2025. Acrylic painting, print on cloth<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As an illustrator and artist, Sahoko Aki has often collaborated with archaeologists to reconstruct images of ancient human life in Japan. Along the Tsunan river terraces in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, the prehistoric Jomon inhabitants made flamboyantly decorated pottery, while hunting and gathering for thousands of years. Here the artist imagines a worldview of space and time based on local traditions and the memories of lived experience. This overlaps with the body-centered cosmology suggested by Fumio Obara. He and the Jomon people carry within their bodies maps invisible to most of us, accustomed as we are to using maps with excessive visual information and without accompanying experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Art at a Crossroads: Uncover the Untold Stories of an Aboriginal Collection<\/strong>
Kelly Cusack, Sally K. May, Andrea Jalandoni, Gabriel Maralngurra<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nFrom 1912 to 1922, W. Baldwin Spencer and Paddy Cahill collected over 160 bark paintings from the Oenpelli (Gunbalanya) community. While these artworks shaped global perceptions of Aboriginal culture, the artists remained nameless, their individual creativity overlooked. Until now. Join us in recognising, celebrating, and acknowledging some of these artists and their rich stories through Art at a Crossroads.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\nA VR component accompanies this work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Waters of Wisdom: Traditional Ingenuity in Water Resource Management<\/strong>
Carmen Baulch, Austral Archaeology, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis diorama showcases the diversity and ingenuity of traditional water management practices from various cultural and ecological environments. The diorama will consist of four distinct scenarios, each positioned in a separate corner, highlighting the sustainable use of water resources. The chosen scenarios include the Brewarrina Fish Traps of Australia, illustrating the integration of fishing and ecosystem management; Hawaiian and Polynesian Fishponds, emphasising controlled fish harvesting; Wetland Management practices of the Amazon Basin, showcasing sustainable agriculture in aquatic settings; and the Falaj Irrigation System of Oman, demonstrating the strategic use of underground water for irrigation in arid landscapes. The diorama will effectively communicate the connection between archaeological water management and community life while celebrating the ingenuity and resilience of traditional knowledge systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This work accompanies T06\/S01: Sacred Streams, Changing Currents: Perspectives from the Past for a Sustainable Future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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