M HKA Ensembles

Mixed Media

Collection: Courtesy Stichting Egress Foundation.

For the Eurasia exhibition, M HKA presented a selection of textiles and books based on their relevance for the Silk Road and the history of trade across Eurasia. The collection contains pieces of silk and velvet, embroidered caps from Central Asia, dresses, kimonos, veils and other elements of clothing which have served people in different historical periods, being at the same time objects of trade and exchange. As Seth Siegelaub pointed out, textiles are unique research materials in the history of humanity because of their contradictory character: textiles are delicate and practical materials and in other ways resilient and moveable objects. According to Seth 56 Siegelaub: “The perfect combination of costliness, lightweight and durability of silk made it a very profitable object of trade (along with spices, gems, and other products which share these physical characteristics) and, with this trade, an essential means of communication for motifs, designs, cultural values and ideas, as well as the power behind them. [...] In this sense, the historical ‘durability’ of textiles is very similar to that of architecture, but instead of immutable monumental and heroic remains physically linked to a particular place, we have mobile textile fragments”.

The Seth Siegelaub collection provides fascinating historical material that encourages continuous dialogue with contemporary artists. This is also due to the manner in which Siegelaub built his textile collection. It was driven by his interests and hands-on engagement with the items, their function and their material qualities. This attitude is unlike a typical collection founded to create a comprehensive or ‘objective’ survey. The video work Mater Mea by Rini Hurkmans is part of the The Stichting Egress Foundations collections. It is based on two components: a film on laundry hanging in the streets of overcrowded cities in China, and on processional music. The music piece Mater Mea composed by the Spanish composer Ricardo Dorado Janeiro in 1962, is performed by the oldest brass band in the Southern Netherlands. Laundry, as its protagonist, indirectly refers to people and also to the person who looks after things, takes care of everything, or the mother. The laundry outside, waving in the wind of the polluted environment, the invisible act of cleaning and washing together with the processional music makes reference to rituals. Here, the repetition of reproductive labour and care is placed in dialogue with the rhythm of processional scores that are repeated through tradition, provoking key questions about labour, urban space and notions of tradition over time.