Embroidered Identities - Ornately Decorated Textiles and Accessories of Chinese Ethnic Minorities

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This publication accompanies the University Museum and Art Gallery’s exhibition of traditional Chinese costumes, baby carriers and silver ornaments drawn from the collection of Mei-yin Lee. Elaborately embroidered costumes and baby carriers, most of which originate with the Miao, Dong, Shui and Zhuang ethnic tribes of the south-western Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi are decorated with richly coloured, stitched and sewn ornamentations―and sometimes silver applications―indigenous to the particular culture and long-lived traditions they derive from. As some ethnic minorities lack a written script, the symbolism and colour-coding found in their textiles form a visual language that presents an important cultural and anthropological development and heritage still in practice today.