CAADcast is a podcast by the Centre of Asian Art and Design based in the School of Art Design and Media, National Technological University, Singapore. Hosted by Dr Karin Oen, Principal Research Fellow at CAAD, the podcast aims to connect listeners to the world of Asian art through interviews with a wide range of creative practitioners.
From its traditional origins in the 1700s, to being a banned and nearly extinct traditional craft under Soviet Occupation, and now being worn by models down New York fashion runways, Uzbekistan’s ikat has had a rich and fascinating history. One of its chief advocates is our guest Muhayo Alieva, founder of the fashion brand and social enterprise Bibi Hanum. Listen to her and Karin talk about all things ikat, including points about slow fashion, cultural preservation, and Jackie Kennedy.
—
Muhayo Alieva founded Bibi Hanum, a fashion brand based on traditional textiles, in her mother’s garage in 2006, after watching the challenges faced by her older sisters, who had married strict, traditional men. She did not want to have a similar life and wanted to help women as much as she could. She believes working women have a better life. As a little girl, Muhayo would design clothes and her eldest sister Surayo would sew them, and they still do that today at Bibi Hanum. Bibi Hanum has trained over a dozen women in the past fifteen years, and some have moved on to work internationally. Muhayo believes that utilizing handmade textiles through fashion is a stepping-stone to a better life for the hundreds of women whom she eventually hopes to employ.
—
Dr Karin Oen is Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian Art and Design in the School of Art, Design, and Media, Nanyang Technological University where she also teaches in the MA Programme in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices and the undergraduate major in English Literature and Art History. She was recently Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes for NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. Prior to that, Dr Oen was associate curator of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. As the Asian Art Museum’s first full-time curator of contemporary art, Dr Oen was a pivotal figure in the growth of the museum’s contemporary collection — especially in new media and works by Asian diaspora artists, as well as in ceramics by modern masters. Dr Oen holds a PhD in History, Theory and Criticism of Art and Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MA in Modern Art History, Connoisseurship and Art-Market History from Christie’s Education and a BA with honours in Urban Studies, Art History minor, from Stanford University. All content © 2022 CAADcast: On Asian Art and Design. Interested in podcasting? Learn how you can start a podcast with Buzzsprout. Podcast hosting by Buzzsprout.