Weiss awarded Fulbright Scholarship to continue work in India

11 Apr 2014    

Wendy Weiss, professor and director of the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery  at  the University of Nebraska has been awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar grant to to continue her research in Gujarat, India during the 2014-2015 academic year, the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced.

Wendy Weiss will return to India to follow-up on work she started in 2009 in the Surendranagar district of Gujarat. She will build on existing relationships with artisans to introduce new digital design strategies to the master ikat weavers in the village of Somasar. Additionally, she will establish new relationships in the two other major ikat weaving centers of India, located in the states of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh where she will continue to document the technical procedures for warp and weft ikat regionally.

Her work with the artisans in design training will lead to developing a creative body of work in collaboration with the craftspeople. Professor Weiss plans to exhibit this original new collaborative work with the artisan/designers in India and the USA.

Professor Weiss will work with master weavers in her project titled “Documentation and design development of ikat weaving: digital frontier.” Research from her 2009 Fulbright will be published in the May issue of the Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice in an article titled, “Gujarati Warp Ikat Resist Method: A Practitioner’s Record and Translation into Cloth.”

Weiss is one of approximately 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in 2014-2015. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education.