Abstract
This study analyses textile teaching at Universidad de Chile (1930-2000), the first institution to incorporate it as an academic discipline in the country, as a case of theory-making through practice. Drawing on archives, oral testimonies, and material objects (looms, notebooks, works), we reconstruct how textiles operated simultaneously as technical knowledge, affective space, and pedagogical practice. In dialogue with Catherine Dormor, we approach weaving as material thinking and "theory-making" through making; following Elvira Espejo, we situate it as a matrix of relational knowledges. This case inscribes itself within institutionalization of textiles in 20th-century art and design schools, with influence from foreign instructors and emphasis on gobelins, tapestry, and kilim. Currently, both collection and teaching remain in Faculty of Arts as textile art, with no consolidated field in design. This displacement evidences the need to reconsider textiles in design education. We argue textiles produced epistemological frameworks dialoguing with contemporary material practice debates.
Keywords
Textile pedagogy, Affective epistemologies, Design history, Latin American design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1648
Citation
Vicencio-Pérez, C., and Cattan-Lavin, M. (2026) Affective Epistemologies: Textile Teaching at University of Chile, 1930-2000, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1648
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Affective Epistemologies: Textile Teaching at University of Chile, 1930-2000
This study analyses textile teaching at Universidad de Chile (1930-2000), the first institution to incorporate it as an academic discipline in the country, as a case of theory-making through practice. Drawing on archives, oral testimonies, and material objects (looms, notebooks, works), we reconstruct how textiles operated simultaneously as technical knowledge, affective space, and pedagogical practice. In dialogue with Catherine Dormor, we approach weaving as material thinking and "theory-making" through making; following Elvira Espejo, we situate it as a matrix of relational knowledges. This case inscribes itself within institutionalization of textiles in 20th-century art and design schools, with influence from foreign instructors and emphasis on gobelins, tapestry, and kilim. Currently, both collection and teaching remain in Faculty of Arts as textile art, with no consolidated field in design. This displacement evidences the need to reconsider textiles in design education. We argue textiles produced epistemological frameworks dialoguing with contemporary material practice debates.