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Inner cover, Re-visioning Silk Through Amami Ōshima, Lisa Onaga and Anne McKnight, eds.

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Mask-making results, 5 April 2020. Monkey business, French linens & various Japanese prints. Olson Mask pattern. Used filter bag from microfiber vacuum cleaner dust bag. https://www.weneedmasks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/OlsonMask_wPattern_v3.pdf

Mask-making under supervision of this energetic cat. Using (mostly) Japanese prints for the exterior and the filter comes from a vacuum bag (I tested it; it’s breathable). If you’re interested in how different household #textiles stack up, read this: https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-face-mask-virus/

3-day old larvae of 蚕, reared at Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute-Mysuru

Thank you to the Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute-Mysuru for hosting our workshop on cocoons as objects in public history! The bus ride was long but worth it! Here are some photos of the front entrance, followed by mulberry. On our tour, I was astounded by the sheer acreage of mulberry, unlike anything I have seen in Japan. Mysuru today is known for Bombyx mori silk (166,00 ha of mulberry grown in Karnataka according to FAO), majority of which is processed into silk garments sold within the country. I made a slide (second image) to show the differences when mulberry is allowed to grow unpruned (these remind me of the mulberry trees I have seen depicted in treatises from the Tokugawa era and earlier, with people climbing the branches) compared to actively cultivated mulberry. New seedlings are grown in irrigated pots and after planted in the field, they take nine months to reach full productivity. Fertilizer is applied but no insecticides. In addition to mechanical control (picking and burning infected leaves), beetles are used to biocontrol for pests like mealy bugs. It takes ten years to otherwise breed and develop a new unique variety of mulberry through various hybridization and selection methods. #srishtiwinterschool #sericulture #publichistory

In Bengaluru, I visited one of the loveliest places on earth, Blossom Book House, an independent used bookshop on Church street, founded by Mayi Gowda. It made me realize that I haven’t seen anything like this in years since higher rents have been forcing indie bookstores in my hometown to move farther away. If you’re not sure what to do this weekend, why not go out to your local bookstore? #bookstagram #blossombookhouse

After a feast of discussions concerning Animal Materialities in our December workshop, I spent some time this new year thinking with the ever-astonishing Joseph Beuys installation at Hamburger Bahnhof—Museum für Gegenwart. These sculptures from 1977 are massive casts of tallow. Maybe 20 tons or so of beef fat were rendered? Beuys’ work is described by Skulptur Projekte Archiv as initiating a dialogue between “the aggregate states of warm/soft and cold/hard, organic/living and solidified/dead, between the chaotic and crystalline” (Ferdinand Uptmoor). @lowengard2 thanks for the heads up... Aaaand now nose to the grindstone~ https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/event/animal-materialities-compositions-and-practices-history-science

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