N@N – Hanna Chuchvaha – Quiet Feminists

Event Details

Quiet Feminists: Craftswomen, Stitches and Collecting Female Crafts in the Late Russian Empire

In the patriarchal culture of the late Russian Empire, collecting, preserving and exhibiting art works was a preference suitable predominantly for men; however, in the second half of the nineteenth century, a new type of collector emerged. The women, both in the capitals and provinces, began collecting, exhibiting and promoting folk arts and crafts and needlework.

The paper analyzes the specific female collectors’ focus on objects associated with women, their pastimes, domesticity and femininity understood as an expression of both self and group identity. It examines women-collectors as active subjects involved in material production, preservation of textiles and communication with the public and consumers.

Hanna Chuchvaha is a scholar of the history of East European art, design, and visual culture with a focus on several fields, such as print culture, word and image, women art collectors, and post-Chornobyl art of trauma. She teaches at the School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures (University of Calgary). Her first book, Art Periodical Culture in Late Imperial Russia (1898–1917): Print Modernism in Transition, was published by Brill in 2016. Currently she is working on two projects, a monograph devoted to women collectors and patrons in the late Russian Empire, which was awarded by SSHRC, and on a co-edited (with Alla Myzelev, SUNY Geneseo) volume, Challenging imperial narratives through visual art and material culture in Eastern Europe and Eurasia from 1760 to the present. She is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Culture. An additional link to more information can be found here: https://slllc.ucalgary.ca/profiles/1-9170035

Free, everyone welcome

Held in person, in the Gallery Hall, ground floor Taylor Family Digital Library (adjacent to Nickle Galleries).