Resource: The Weaving Communities of Practice Website

Fig1The Weaving Communities of Practice website, the result of an AHRC-funded project on textiles, culture and identity in the Andes, provides a great resource for anyone interested in Andean textiles and an inspiration for textile designers. The database is easily searchable around a number of themes and provides high-resolution full colour images of textiles from collections around the world.

The project is based at the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS) and the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at Birkbeck, University of London, with the Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara (ILCA), in La Paz, Bolivia, in partnership with museums in the UK, Bolivia, Peru and Chile.

The principal feature of this website is a database of Andean textiles. Using the Textile Product Search, you can:

  • Search the database by key terms
  • View high-resolution images of textiles from collections around the world
  • Make thematic searches: on structure, technique, place, region, period, material and iconography
  • Make advanced searches, crossing and filtering data
  • Save text, images and searches
  • Print, export and send data

There is also a detailed guide to processes of textile manufacture, including images and video clips of techniques, instruments and structures; a glossary of textile-related terms in English, Spanish and Andean languages; an introduction to textile heritage; and bibliography.

Text and images: Weaving Communities of Practice website

 

 

 

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