This dissertation is a social and material cultural history of the handicraft carpet industry in the late Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It examines how the carpet handicraft associated with the Islamic East entered the vocabulary of the Soviet state, despite its emphasis on heavy industrial development. Woven mostly by women and girls in village and pastoral nomadic contexts, the so-called Oriental carpets of the Russian Empire became sought-after items within the global carpet trade in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The research explores how the Soviet state replaced and replicated business networks that had sprung up during the carpet boom starting in the 1870s, consolidating them into state structures of trade, industry, and national heritage. Despite the rhetoric of socialist modernization of the Soviet Union, carpets continued to be knotted and woven by hand through the end of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, the women’s bodies, skills, and the products of their labor were categorized and understood in different ways. The dissertation uses handicraft carpets to reframe our understanding of how the Soviet Union incorporated peripheral regions such as the Caucasus into the cultural, social, and economic landscape of the Soviet Union. Moving beyond frameworks of the center and periphery that has characterized previous scholarship of the region, the dissertation foregrounds the Caucasus as a nexus of networks that connected the Soviet Union to Europe, Americas, and the Near East. It provides an alternative reading of Soviet national cultures as rooted not so much in top-down or bottom-up negotiations within the cultural or political spheres but in the cross-fertilizations through local, regional, and international networks. The work looks past national narratives to emphasize the role that merchants, weavers, and artists played in shaping the trajectory of handicraft carpet weaving in the Soviet Caucasus. Drawing on a close study of objects, visual material, oral history, and institutional records, the dissertation shows how the construction of Soviet national cultural heritage in the Caucasus was born out attempts reshape the relationship between the practitioner and the craft.

Most people might not reflect upon textiles as anything more than the soft material in our clothes. As a crafts practitioner, I gain knowledge of woven materials that go beyond that. The knowledge of weaving and materials is developing the ideas that form the concept of this project. From the tacit knowledge, derived from years of practically working with textile materials, an intellectual understanding of materials and the worlds they construct is growing. In this project, I decipher my own ideas of the woven structure in order to invite others to experience the universe within textiles. I look at the weave as a structure, built up by small particles in forms of threads. If seeing the weave from a distance, each repeated pattern can in turn be perceived as the smallest element. By seeing woven materials from more than one perspective, I believe that the understanding of the construction itself can develop. As this understanding grows, so does the ability to judge the quality of the material. In this line of thought, the tools used to reflect upon what materials are, how they are made and what they signify, becomes greater. To visualise the knowledge I have of the textile structures I make, I work with a waffle weave structure, together with a dyeing technique called Ikat. I also draw connections between the woven structure and that of a map – as a tool that humans use to understand their surroundings. The use of perspectives and scale is another tool that is used to widen our perception of the world around us. In order to create an experience of the universe within textiles and to invite others into that world, I draw parallels between the miniature scale of the woven material and larger, architectural structures. The final outcome of this project is a textile installation, consisting of three weavings that together form a larger construction. The construction is open for people to enter and experience. Inside the construction a smaller woven piece is presented as a map over the woven world. This weaving initially contains the same information as the large structure, but on a much smaller scale. / <p>Image no. 16 has been removed due to copyright reasons. A link to the image can be found in the <em>List of References</em></p>

There is a link between the tactile and optical modes of perception. Woven textiles’ materiality and ability to take three dimensional form, make them a good medium for creating shapes containing several pattern scales and textures. By conciously working with tactile-visual qualities and aesthetics one can achieve the most powerful effects, and in turn, the textile can take the role of a sensation director. By interpreting Kasuri with large scaled threads on a computerized hand loom and in space, an exploration of details and spatial installation can be conducted simultaneously. The five examples developed in this project demonstrate different approaches to dimensional hand weaving, intending to build a better understanding of micro and macro spatial features in woven textiles. Significantly, the project challenges the scale of hand weaving as well as the design process: stretching from thread to dimensional weave empowers the designer. By highlighting crafted details on a large scale, a sequence of events can be discerned that makes the spectator aware of quality and of the production process. Parallels between the body of work and our perception of lines and interspaces are drawn as an attempt to refine our relation to the objects around us.

In this paper I have investigated the role of the weaver, from my own perspective as a weaver. I have discussed weaving in relation to function and painting, and how the weaving process and the collaboration with the loom have a great impact on what I create. I have found it difficult to believe in the future as a weaver, and with this project I wanted to find a meaning with weaving that I can lean on.   All five weaves are woven on the same warp, I call it a warp family. Every weave is a try and a failure to weave a rug. Instead they have all turned into different characters, portraying my ongoing struggle with, and love for, the warp.    I’ve come to the conclusion that for me the rug is a symbol for honesty in making, and that it’s function is to remind us about values that often are neglected. The visible process, the human presence, is then more important than aspects like functionality or perfection.

Ull är en populär fiber och förekommer ofta i mattproduktion. Med hjälp av livscykelanalyser visar ullen vara en av de fibrerna som ligger i toppen av de material som har högst koldioxidutsläpp. Dock finns det en problematik vid beräkning av miljöpåverkan inom ullproduktionen som kan bidra till ett orättvist resultat. Trots det kvarstår faktumet att det finns förbättringar inom ullproduktionen samt att det är viktigt att ta vara på den ullen som annars skulle gått till förbränning. I samarbete med mattföretaget Rugvista undersöker denna studie hur implementering av 60% återvunna fibrer i mattgarn påverkar kvalitén med en målsätting att få in ull i ett cirkulärt flöde. Genom att undersöka detta spanns ett garn med 60% återvunnen ull och 40% konventionell ull på en E-spinner. Syftet var att garnet skulle nå upp de krav som Rugvista ställer på deras garn. Båda garnerna handvävdes därefter i en tvåskaftsbindning med ett inslagsripsutseende och i samma struktur för de skulle kunna bli jämförda med varandra under samma förutsättningar. Garnerna gick därefter igenom ett dragprovstest och de vävda proverna utsattes för ett modifierad martindaletest. Utifrån dragprovstestet påvisade de tillverkade garnet att de krävdes högre kraft för att nå brottspunkten, då majoriteten av protoypgarnerna klarade en kraft på 3500 cN, vilket var max kraften för Rugvistas garn. Dock gick det att se en större variation på brottpunkten till skillnad från Rugvistas garn som var mer enhetligt i deras resultat. I det modifierade martindaletestet gjordes en visuell bedömning på det vävda proverna efter dem hade blivit utsatta för 15 000 varv. Där påvisades referensmaterialet ett bättre resultat då den bevarade sitt utgångs utseende medan prototypen fick noppbildning redan efter 3000 varv samt släppte ifrån sig betydligt mer fibrer. Slutsatsen av studien blev att utifrån testningen visade prototypen att den inte möter den kvalitén som Rugvista ställer på sina mattor. Utmaningen är den korta fiberlängden hos de återvunna ullfibrerna som lätt lossnar från garnet. Studien visar även att de möjligt att tillverka ett tillräckligt starkt garn för att väva mattor i men att det krävs ytterligare forskning för att produktanpassa det till garnets förutsättningar. / Wool is an admired fiber and is frequently utilized in carpet production. According to life cycle analyses (LCA), wool shows to be one of the fibers that ranks highest in carbon dioxide emissions. However, there are challenges when calculating the environmental impact of wool production that contributes to an unfair result. This does not negate the reality that there are some areas within the wool life cycle that needs enhancement, especially when it comes to the utilization of wool that would otherwise have gone to incineration. This study, conducted in collaboration with the carpet company Rugvista, examines how 60% recycled wool fibers in carpet yarn affects the quality with the aim of getting wool into a circular economy. By investigating this, a yarn with 60% recycled wool and 40% conventional wool was spun on an E-spinner. The objective was to produce a yarn that meets Rugvista's quality standards. Both yarns were later handwoven in a weft-faced plainweave structure to allow for a fair comparison. The yarns underwent a tensile strength test, and the woven samples were subjected to a modified Martindale abrasion test. The results from the tensile test, showed that the manufactured yarns required a higher force to reach the breaking point, as the majority of the prototype yarns could withstand a force of 3500 cN, which was the maximum force for Rugvista's yarns. However, the breaking points of the manufactured yarns had a greater variation, unlike Rugvista's yarn, which demonstrated a more consistent result. In the modified Martindale test, visual assessments of the woven samples were conducted after 15 000 cycles. The reference material, Rugvista’s material, retained its original appearance, while the prototype developed a pilling surface after only 3000 cycles and released a remarkable amount of more fibers. The study concluded that the prototype did not meet Rugvista's quality standards for carpets. The primary challenge is the short fiber length of the recycled wool, which tends to detach from the yarn. While the study demonstrates the possibility of producing sufficiently strong yarn for carpet weaving, further research is necessary to optimize the product according to the yarn's characteristics.