Webinar with Gunnar Nilsson, Collector and Independent Scholar, Göteborg, Sweden, co-sponsored by the New England Rug Society, Textile Museum Associates of Southern California, and The Textile Museum / GWU
Certain textile techniques unique to rural communities in Sweden have a long history, and the best pieces stand comparison with the most celebrated traditional textile art elsewhere in Europe, including the best Flemish-weave and röllakan examples. Yet they remain little known outside their locality. In times past, the peasantry in Skåne, southern Sweden, devised and utilised five different textile techniques about which little has been written in English. In this program, Collector Gunnar Nilsson lets us into the secrets of munkabälte, dukagång, krabbasnår, upphämta and trensaflossa. These techniques, all of which are represented in prominent Swedish museums with textile displays, are well known to aficionados within Sweden—people interested in textile history, collectors, and anyone enjoying handicraft techniques, of whom there are thousands across the whole of Sweden.