Consumers as Spectators: Theorizing Textile Design for Central Asia and Broader 'East' in the Soviet 1920s

• In Event: Visual Culture in Central Asia II: Spectatorship and Consumption

Abstract

In the 1920s, mass-produced textiles, or manufaktura, became central to interactions between Soviet Russia and Central Asia. The Soviet state weaponized manufaktura as a means to extract resources and mobilize citizens to participate in socialist projects such as the cultivation of cotton. To make it work, the Soviet textile industry oriented towards mass production, then mostly located in “mainland” Russia, was tasked with aligning its output to “Eastern” needs. How did the Russia-based textile centers such as Moscow, Ivanovo, or Leningrad understand them? Using materials from Tashkent and Moscow archives, published sources, and material artifacts this presentation addresses the question of how the aesthetic “needs” of Central Asian consumers were constructed in these narratives and what affected this process.

Author

• Katherine Kelly