Rug and Textile Appreciation Morning: Weaving Abstraction
Virtual and In Person, Saturday, November 15, 2025, 11 a.m.-12 p.m. EDT
Man’s status cloth (detail); West Central Africa; Bushong people; second-half 19th century/ first-half 18th century. The Textile Museum Collection 24.2. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1933.
As part of a series of 2025 programs revisiting groundbreaking exhibitions and publications from The Textile Museum’s 100-year history, guest curator Vanessa Drake Moraga looks at Weaving Abstraction: Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa. The 2011 exhibition was notable not only as the first major presentation of African textiles at The Textile Museum since founder George Hewitt Myers acquired a rare Kuba skirt in 1933. It was also the first comprehensive museum exhibition and catalog in the United States to explore the breadth of the distinctive Kuba tradition, which represents one of the most complex, historically intact and artistically innovative textile cultures in Central Africa.
The exhibition highlighted the extraordinary creativity and scope of Kuba textile design, which is renowned for its ingenious pattern aesthetic executed with textural surface techniques (cut-pile embroidery, appliqué) that were developed for prestige cloth, as well as ceremonial and funerary attire.
As the title suggests, Weaving Abstraction connected the Kuba tradition to a larger regional context of Congolese fiber art and weaving, including several coastal Kongo textiles also acquired by Myers that provided a rare historical perspective. Drake Moraga will discuss exhibitions and research since 2011 that have amplified our knowledge of Kuba and Kongo textile history and dating — and touch upon the growing recognition of Kuba influence in global design and fashion from early modernism to the contemporary moment.
About Vanessa Drake Moraga
Vanessa Drake Moraga is an independent scholar and writer on textile art from Africa and South America. Drake Moraga was guest curator for Weaving Abstraction: Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa (2011). She also co-authored African Textiles with Duncan Clarke and Sarah Fee (2022) and wrote the catalog essay for the forthcoming exhibition Designing Dynamism: Kuba Textiles from the Wesley Mancini Collection at The Mint Museum in North Carolina (2026). Her other publications include Animal Myth and Magic: Images from Pre-Columbian Textiles (1995), as well as many articles on textile art and iconography.
How to Participate
This program will be in a hybrid format. You can join us in person at the museum or watch the livestream online. Please register in advance and choose how you would like to participate. We will email virtual attendees a link and instructions for joining via Zoom. When you register, you can also request to receive a reminder email one day before the program with the link included.
About Rug and Textile Appreciation Mornings
Collectors and experts discuss textile topics and display examples from their personal holdings. This series is named in honor of late Textile Museum trustee emeritus, Harold M. Keshishian. Browse upcoming programs