Co-curated by Lydia Matthews, Nino (Chuka) Kuprava and Mariam Shergelashvili
Supported by the US Embassy in Georgia
Texts as Cultural Treasure is a multidisciplinary project at the State Silk Museum that brings together eight artists from the U.S. and Georgia. Through a dynamic mix of archival research, artistic residency, and cultural exchange, the project explores the historical, ecological, and cultural significance of silk. It asks the question: how might the museum’s unique library collection become an inspiration to generate new works? Combining diverse mediums—ranging from archival image and video to sound and animation—the participating artists reinterpret the museum’s rich archival collection, weaving together narratives that connect past and present, tradition and innovation.
Cocooning in Tbilisi
By Lydia Matthews
“Think of a museum as a cocoon spun by people; that can help gestate new states of being from the stuff of the past.”
So began the project statement by U.S. artists Mary Tsiongas and Jim Roeber, two of the five artists– along with Stacey Steers, John Romano and G.E. Patterson–who traveled from various parts of the USA to Tbilisi to take part in the 2024 Texts as Cultural Treasures project. Once in the country to begin their two week artistic research residency generously supported by the US Embassy in Georgia, they entered the cocoon of the Tbilisi State Silk Museum, a site undergoing a massive metamorphosis of its own.
When the artists arrived in March 2024, construction workers were hard at work renovating the museum’s architectural infrastructure. Its extraordinary material collections had been carefully packaged and placed under plastic tarps to protect them from the dust and debris of the renovation process. Before boxing up the massive museum library collection for safekeeping, staff members pulled aside journals and books requested by the artists. These included publications about the lifecycle of the Bombyx Mori silk worm, the character and cultivation of mulberry trees, the weaving and patterning of local and international silk textiles, and the industrialization of silk production and its expansive global trade routes. Each day the artists entered the Silk Museum to explore these texts, they witnessed the slow, steady transformation of the building. They sketched, took notes, and photographed pages from the library’s treasure-trove of publications, all the while becoming familiar with the dedicated staff who spin this museum cocoon on a daily basis.
To complement their textual research, the U.S. artists exchanged ideas through presentations and hands-on workshops with the three Georgian artists who had been commissioned to work on the Texts as Cultural Treasures’ project. To gain an even deeper understanding of local history and visual culture, they wandered throughout the city making sound and video recordings; they perused collections within Tbilisi’s many museums as well as the Georgian National Film Archive. They also shared meals and did studio visits with other influential local artists, curators and poets, visiting an array of sites their hosts believed were particularly important throughout the city. They augmented this amalgam of urban exchanges by taking a field trip to rural Georgia, accompanied by the Silk Museum curators. There, they immersed themselves in a contemporary silk worm farm run by Lamara Bejashvili. They experimented with co-creating polyphonic music, tasted local delicacies, and visited a variety of “house museums” featuring craft and literary treasures in the Khaheti and Chargali regions. After returning to the United States, they allowed these experiences and materials to gestate for a period of six months before their completed works emerged.
The fruition of this mix of inspiration can be seen in the final works featured on the Silk Museum’s website. These include a short film made by Stacey Steers and John Romano, two long-time, multi-generational artistic collaborators. It combines stop-action animation from drawings, library book illustrations, archival film footage gleaned from The Georgian National Archives, and scenes the artists recorded while walking Tbilisi’s streets as well as at Bejashvili’s silk farm. Echoing the aesthetics of Surrealist cinema, we witness the lyrical wanderings of the artists’ imaginations in dialogue with the variety of urban and literary “texts” they encountered during their stay.
Poet G.E. Patterson has generated his own text in response to this residency experience–one structured around sound and rhythms. Attuned to both the acoustics and visuality of the printed and spoken word, his poem’s language and lineage were inspired by works in the Silk Museum Library. Two texts became especially significant in his approach in writing Morus alba Mûrier: the California Silk Grower’s Manual by Louis Prevost and Ver a Soie, by Marc Jérome Vida, translated into French by Matthieu Bonafous. What results from Patterson’s rumination is an homage to the enduring spirit of the mulberry tree and the harvesting of its nutritious leaves—a process that links us to history and provides a source of hope for the future.
Working at the intersection of textiles and technology, Mary Tsiongas and Jim Roeber responded to the plethora of “stuff of the past” by co-creating Silk + Sound. The artists sewed conductive wire thread onto archival paper to create an audio speaker. This apparatus allows viewers to experience a customized soundscape while witnessing images culled from the treasury of books in the museum’s library, the National Film Archives’ collection and from Lamara Bejashvili’s silk farm in Khaheti. Tsiongas and Roeber’s fascination with the organic life cycle of the Bombyx Mori silk worm, the labor and love involved in maintaining cottage industries, and the contrasting mechanics of Soviet era factory production and contemporary cities can all be felt through their audio-visual works.
Unshadowing Textures: Reactivating An Archive
By Mariam Shergelashvili
The Texts as Cultural Treasure offers a multidimensional exploration of the historical, visual, and conceptual aspects of silk as both a material and a cultural symbol. The contributions of three Georgian artists and designers — Nino Kvrivishvili, Mariam Zaldastanishvili and Nino Goderidze (God Era) interweave historical narratives with contemporary interpretation, creating a cohesive yet varied artistic experience.
Nino Kvrivishvili’s contribution to the project takes the form of a striking postcard series, designed using her unique visuals of industrial textile sketches. These sketches serve as visual references inspired by quotes from The American Silk Journal, bridging the gap between historical content and contemporary artistic expression. Kvrivishvili’s archival research of American Silk Magazines, with research assistance from Tamar Nadashvili, transforms the historical material into an accessible, tangible format. Her work not only reflects the technological advancements and industrial processes behind silk production but also reinterprets them through her own creative lens. Rooted in the industrial design language of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, her sketches both pay homage to the innovations of the Jacquard loom and engage with the archival material to create a visual narrative that links past industrial practices with present-day artistic perspectives.
Mariam Zaldastanishvili’s visual campaign I SAW IT utilizes archival material from The American Silk Journal to establish connections between silk industrialization in the U.S. and its Georgian counterpart. Her slogan—”I saw it in The American Silk Journal” and “I saw it in The Georgian Silk Museum”—encapsulates a dialogue that brings to life the historical ties between these two silk-producing regions. Through her interactive visual approach, Zaldastanishvili encourages active engagement with the museum’s archives, thereby broadening access to cultural knowledge.
Nino Goderidze’s video work is a central medium that brings a biological and ecological perspective to the project, focusing on parasitic fungi like BRIOSI and CAVARA sourcing the museum library book “BRIOSI E CAVARA – FUNGHI PARASSITI DELLE PIANTE COLTIVATE OD UTILI”. By drawing parallels between parasitism and fabric degradation, Goderidze explores the broader theme of fashion sustainability. Her metaphor of symbiosis, where damaged fabric can evolve into a new creation, reflects a modern, ecological vision that critiques fast fashion and advocates for sustainable practices.
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The U.S. and Georgian artists, poets and designers who participated in Texts as Cultural Treasures have clearly demonstrated that the Tbilisi State Silk Museum’s library is nothing short of a treasure trove. If a museum can be likened to a “cocoon spun by people,” then the October 2024 emergence of the fully restored Silk Museum now has the capacity to continue generating new generations of intellectual research, material collections, international exchanges, and multi-disciplinary creative opportunities. Cross-cultural artist residencies such as this one may appear to be short-lived in the greater scheme of the museum’s long history, but like each silkworm’s cocoon, it has created the unique conditions and liminal space needed to give rise to powerful personal and artistic transformations.
