Weekly Notes on April 6
Lots to share from a week in Detroit coming up. craft exhibition at Ford Museum, Wayne State reviews, First Congregational Church, Cranbrook tour, Detroit Institute of Arts, and more.
But first, weekly notes:
TO READ
Why Read Together?
New titles by @humdrum_press
Why Read Together, On Companions, Co-conspirators, and Breathing Words From IG Post: This book is a companion for collective reading, especially collective reading that sits outside of institutional spaces. It has been crafted by Reading Rhythms Club. @readingrhythmsclub — Cooking Up Collectivity Cooking Up Collectivity collects recipes, questions, drawings, methods, menus, conversations, and other experimental outputs from this programme to encourage readers to build their own collectives and to self-organise. Riso printed & spiral bound 2026 / €18,00 / 18 x 19 cm / 80p Edited by Amy Gowen, Florian Cramer, Katinka de Jonge, Simon Kentgens Published by HumDrumPress, Roodkapje, Willem de Kooning Academy, Hocus Bogus Publishing — Both titles (and more from HumDrumPress) are distributed in NL&BE through @jessepresse
TO READ
Article about cleaning and architecture by Menna Agha in The Avery Review
Anoint the Sweeper
https://averyreview.com/issues/75/anoint-the-sweeper
TO READ:
Mount Making and Exhibition Display: A Practical Guide
From @wongkelwin on IG:
Mount Making and Exhibition Display is a practical guide for museum and exhibition professionals, published by the Asian Civilisations Museum. . . .Mount making is often called the invisible art of museum work. Visitors admire the objects, but rarely see the careful engineering and craftsmanship holding each one in place. A well-designed mount does more than support an object. It tells a story, highlights what matters, and keeps things safe for the long term.
We have a small but serious community of museum and exhibition practitioners here in Singapore, with our own body of knowledge built up over decades. That knowledge is worth documenting and sharing beyond our shores.
Much of what exists today traces back to Encik Mazlan Bin Anur, Singapore’s first mount maker, who started developing this craft in our museums in the early 1990s. He trained the late Nazri, who was the mounter at the National Museum of Singapore, and Syiqah, who carries on at ACM today.
RESOURCES
From @queercute_ and charliesangelsunion
From the IG Post:
This isn’t a full list - but it’s the first bit of orgs I personally have either connected with or know folks who have used their resources. These orgs provide comprehensive support and funding for queer and trans individuals needing to relocate. They help pay for housing relocation needs, flights & provide support around all relocation needs. Both @tractionproject & @werqtogether help relocate people from red states to safer blue states & @rainbowrailroad helps relocate people to outside of the US. As things progress and we see more and more scary things pass in red states and across the country, the more these resources will be stretched thin. Please consider donating directly to these orgs to help folks and share these orgs with folks needing these resources right now.
RESOURCES: Imaginary Archives
From @black.memory.co
Artists and Writers have been creating “imaginary archives” through the speculative — these are bodies of imagined documents used as an instrument to contemplate, explore, and question archival practices as well as time, place, and life. Sources: MarieClaire Graham, “Imagining the Archive: Speculation as a Tool of Archival Reconstruction” https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4259&context=gc_etds Saidiya Hartman, “The Anarchy of Colored Girls Assembled in a Riotous Manner” https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/saidiya-hartman-the-anarchy-of-colored-girls-assembled-in-a-riotous-manner Tina Campt, “Listening to Imagines” https://www.dukeupress.edu/listening-to-images Kiraṇ Kumār, Kiwi Menrath & Laurie Young, “Imaginary Archive” https://kverlag.com/products/imaginary-archives
RESOURCES
From @seattletimes
The Ireichō, a book listing the names of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, comes to the Seattle area, where family members can stamp under the names to honor them.
RESISTANCE
Choctaw Nation buying land: No Detention Centers here.
Via @Project Salt Box
Choctaw Nation Buys Former Big Lots Warehouse, Closing Off Oklahoma ICE Detention Site
Updated March 26, 2026 at 9:54 a.m. E.T…
OPPORTUNITIES
From @mit_thresholds and @mitarchitecture
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Thresholds 55: Property Edited by Maia Adele Simon and Hana Nikčević Property: a thing, often material, that is possessed. Property: an aspect or attribute of that thing. While seemingly concrete, the concept of property is frequently fragmentary, contingent, and ephemeral, premised in an array of theoretical descriptions. Property is constructed through social relationships and defined through reciprocal accord. These social dynamics highlight the proximity of property to power through its delimitation of rights to access, possession, and exclusion. Ideas of property have been foundational in both western and non-western frameworks of culture and law, implicated in understandings of individual autonomy, rights, and the economy. From the enclosure of land to its representation in painting, from waqf funds to development mechanisms to environmental protection, to labor, protest, and repatriation, imaginaries of property have shaped art and architecture through history and across geographies. Thresholds 55 invites scholarly writing, criticism, and artistic interventions that interrogate these interactions. Full call for submissions on our website (link in bio) and @e_flux Submission deadline: May 1, 2026 Graphic design: Willis Kingery
TECHNOLOGY AS TOOL: GAMES AND HISTORY
From @killscreendotcom
A researcher got stranded in the Pacific during World War I and accidentally invented the way we study culture. His 1922 notebooks became the most assigned text in anthropology. Now someone fed them into an AI and built a game out of them. The full story — including why engineers were more curious than the anthropologists — is in the new piece.
TO LEARN (ONLINE)
From @fashioning_sudan and @centrefortextileresearch
How can we reconstruct garments from fragmentary archaeological evidence? Join us for the next Fashioning Sudan seminar, where we explore the methods and challenges of visualising ancient dress—from fragments to full reconstructions. Through drawing, modelling, and experimental practice, this session brings together archaeology, textile research, and visual interpretation. 🗓 15 April 2026 ⏰ 15:00–17:00 CET 📍 CTR (room 11b-1-05) + online via Zoom From Kerma to the Medieval period, this seminar highlights how garments can be reimagined through both material and visual approaches.
MORE GARMENT CONSTRUCTION POSTS
From @hanfugirl and @hfgatelier
This is my love letter to textiles,the craft, beauty, and labour that often go unseen when we wear a garment. Which philosophy are you more drawn to? In this video, I compare two tops made from the same fabric, with a similar silhouette. They are constructed using different cutting logics. I work with different seamstresses and tailors, each trained in different systems. And I started noticing something: When a Western-trained tailor makes a Chinese-style garment, they often default to Western patterning instincts. The result looks slightly off to me. Not wrong, but different. So I decided to reverse engineer this. I asked my Chinese tailor to make the same piece, so I could place them side by side and understand what exactly creates that difference. ⸻ This is my way of making visible something that often feels intuitive: Why does something “look Chinese”? What decisions in cutting, seams, and fabric handling lead to that impression? ⸻ A lot of traditional East Asian garments are deeply textile-centric. They are less about sculpting the body, and more about working with the fabric itself, its width, its structure, its limits. Think kimono. Thank you Aaron for putting that into words and pushing me to think about this more clearly. ⸻ A note on terminology: “Western” and “Chinese” here refer to general construction logics, not absolute categories. There are Western garments, like dolman or batwing sleeves, that also minimise or eliminate the armhole seam. But these are specific stylistic variations. In many East Asian garments, continuous shoulder–sleeve construction is a standard approach.
GARMENTS: “The Ongoing Casualization of the Suit”
From @sakata.ken and @incu_clothing
Soft Power - the ongoing casualisation of the suit Filmed at @incu_clothing
WHEN SCRAP CLOTH BECOMES A LANGUAGE: SUJANI
From @stan_may_48
On Mix: Sudilba • Mithila Folk | Bharat Nepali • Maya Ratna
Day 54: When scrap cloth becomes a language: Sujani Bihar’s Sujani began as a baby quilt. Layers of worn saris stitched together for comfort but the stitches soon became stories. Daily life. Women’s voices. Community memory. A textile tradition that survived not because of royalty, but because ordinary women refused to let their stories fade. Follow @goatmanlifestyle to see the rebirth of Indian textiles
OPPORTUNITIES
From Lexie Harvey:
Call for papers and proposals. All disciplines invited! ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 16 October 2-4, 2026 in Asheville, North Carolina An annual conference exploring the history and legacy of Black Mountain College Hosted and sponsored by Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) and The University of North Carolina Asheville Thematic Focus: Architecture + Design at Black Mountain College This three-day program, open to the public, celebrates the opening of the museum’s exhibition Imaginary Landscapes: Black Mountain College Architecture + Design, organized by Jeff Arnal, Alice Sebrell, Michael Beggs, Tyler Housholder, and Frédérique Davreux-Hébert. The exhibition traces the far-reaching impact of Black Mountain College’s design philosophy deeply influenced by Bauhaus ideals across disciplines and generations. It explores how experimental approaches to materials, pedagogy, and collective living reshaped not only how things were made, but how artists, architects, and thinkers understood the relationship between form and function, people and place, and imagination and environment. At its core, the exhibition asks: How do creative ideas take root in specific places? In turn, how do those places shape the evolution of those ideas? Through these questions, the exhibition will highlight Black Mountain College as both a physical site and a generative force: a place where radical design, interdisciplinary learning, and collaborative experimentation transformed modern art and architecture and continue to inspire new ways of thinking today. Conference proposals connected to architecture + design at Black Mountain College are welcome, but not required. Proposals on any theme related to Black Mountain College and its legacy are encouraged and will be considered, and, in the spirit of BMC, the conference challenges disciplinary boundaries and invites contributions of all genres: performances, panels, + workshops. The conference fee is $100 for presenters and non-presenters and includes lunch on Saturday and a 1-year membership to the museum. The fee for current museum members is $60. Members of the UNCA community do not pay a fee. Submission deadline: June 22, 2026 Notification will be made by July 6, 2026 Submissions (single paper or panel session proposal): https://forms.gle/Vfkn9kWVrC8NpdUx6 Submissions (workshop or performance proposal): https://forms.gle/MoGn7Zudi42noZDt9 Questions: alice@blackmountaincollege.org https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/reviewing/
More later this week!!!
Namita