Enfilade

Opening later this month at Mia:

Dressed by Nature: Textiles of Japan
Minneapolis Institute of Art, 25 June — 11 September 2022

Festival kimono decorated with carp ascending a waterfall made in Akita Prefecture (detail), late 19th–early 20th century, cotton (Minneapolis: Mia, purchase from the Thomas Murray Collection, 2019.20.84).

The Japanese archipelago is home to extremely diverse cultures that made clothing and other textile objects in a kaleidoscope of materials and designs. This exhibition will focus on the resourcefulness of humans to create textiles from local materials like fish skin, paper, elm bark, nettle, banana leaf fiber, hemp, wisteria, deerskin, cotton, silk, and wool. It will showcase rare and exceptional examples of robes, coats, jackets, vests, banners, rugs, and mats, made between around 1750 and 1930, including the royal dress of subtropical Okinawa, ceremonial robes of the Ainu from northern Japan and the Russian Far East, and folk traditions from throughout Japan.