Today on the ITP (Roqaya Khamis AL Shokri, Oman, ITP 2024)
Written by Roqaya Khamis AL Shokri, Head of Information Department, Oman Across Ages Museum (Oman, ITP 2024)
Today, in our department, we kicked off the day with a stimulating and insightful session right from the early hours. My colleague Abdulrahman and I delved into the morning with a discussion with Enrica Inversi on the intricacies of collection care, access, storage, conservation, and more. Enrica is in charge of the Middle East collections. She mentioned the types of objects the department has, such as cuneiforms, tablets, Islamic objects like ceramics and pottery, paintings, and contemporary collections, mostly from Mesopotamia, the Levant, Central Asia, and Iran.
She addressed a crucial subject: moving the objects, the materials they use in packing them, and the considerations throughout the moving process. Subsequently, we visited the Middle East storage, engaging in discussions about the conservation and maintenance challenges museums face concerning their collections, and exploring potential solutions.
Afterward, we joined the other fellows for the second session at the Sir Joseph Hotung Center for Studies, where we had a wonderful topic on textiles. We approached it from various angles. Firstly, with Zeina Klink-Hoppe, Project Curator in the Middle East department, we explored two beautiful textiles – rugs – from Afghanistan. Since Afghanistan has long standing traditions in rug weaving, these two objects are related to the Soviet invasion period. This is why Afghan weaving began to depict war scenes in the textiles.
Subsequently, Imogen Laing instructed the ITP fellows on textile storage methods, starting with steps for rolling textiles without creases, as well as techniques for hanging, shelving, and sewing labels. Following this, our colleague Pinky the opportunity to apply what we had learned, and she did well. Additionally, Alex Green showed us folding techniques for dresses and costumes, and how they use the magical tissue in folding and padding.
The fifth session had a somewhat scientific focus, with Diego Tamburini presenting the analysis of organic dyes and the specialized equipment employed to identify the dyes source typically used in textile dyeing. The analyses revealed that some of these dyes are of plant origin such as curcuma longa and some are from insects like kerria lacca.
Our final session with Helen Wolfe discussed the mounting and display of textiles for exhibition, mostly they have two ways to display: flat lay textiles such as rugs and some clothes, or 3D – often with dresses.
Finally, we went to the galleries to explore the textile mounting techniques, particularly the Islamic world gallery where there are extra =ordinary and special textile collections from different countries. Finishing with a visit to see the amazing textile in the Africa gallery.