Today, I’m delighted to share a clip of an online conversation with Aziz Murtazaev, the leader of the Marikat ikat weaving group in Margilan that I’ve been working with since 2016. (In our last blog post, I shared a little video of Aziz’ daughter Amina entertaining our HoonArts tour group last April with her delightful dancing.)
I prepared this clip initially because Aziz was scheduled to speak as part of the WARP panel discussion on “Continuing Textile Traditions: Uzbekistan,” last week. We also knew he might not make it in person because he was scheduled to be traveling on an international flight on the date of the Panel Discussion (not to mention that the Panel Discussion was scheduled to start at 11:00 pm Uzbek time).
So I volunteered to put together a “back-up” clip from Aziz on some of the challenges that Uzbek traditional artisans face in the post-pandemic world, a topic near and dear to Aziz’ heart. In addition to his own work as the leader of the Marikat ikat team, Aziz has also served as the President of the Asia Pacific Region of the World Craft Council and as the leader of the Uzbek national organization of artisans, so Aziz understands these issues from his own experiences and his work to support thousands of artisans in the region.
This clip was taken from HoonArts’ live online program, Silk Road Design Encounter, which was offered in 2022 and 2023. We’ll be sharing more clips from Design Encounter from time to time in our newsletter/blog.
Fortunately for all those who tuned in to the WARP Panel Discussion last week, Aziz landed in Tashkent just in time! He was able to join us by phone as he deplaned and headed home. And fortunately for you, if you missed that live program last week, you can watch the replay for free. Just click here, and you’ll be able to see the entire program from WARP’s website.
If you are not yet a member of WARP, I highly encourage you to join this international organization of artisans, academics, tour leaders, textile business owners and textile lovers from around the world. Many of their programs are available for free to the public, but there are many benefits available only to members. If you want join the WARP mailing list and get advance notice of all their programs, you can subscribe by clicking here.
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