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Dressing Up Culture: Molas from Kuna Yala installed in the Hood Museum's Gutman Gallery. Photo by Jeffrey Nintzel.
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Dressing Up Culture: Molas from Kuna Yala installed in the Hood Museum's Gutman Gallery. Photo by Jeffrey Nintzel.
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Dressing Up Culture: Molas from Kuna Yala installed in the Hood Museum's Gutman Gallery. Photo by Jeffrey Nintzel.
Location
Temporary Exhibitions, Gutman Gallery
About
Colorful, playful, and visually enticing, the appliquéd molas that Kuna women sew onto their blouses yield an astounding array of traditional and contemporary themes. These stitched cloth panels feature abstract and figurative motifs derived from Kuna legends and culture, political posters, labels, books, the natural world, mass media and popular culture, cartoons, and everyday life. Having initially developed from pre-Hispanic body arts, mola making in Kuna Yala, an archipelago that runs along the Caribbean coast of Panama, has become an important women’s economic enterprise that also preserves Kuna cultural and ethnic identity.
Exhibition Curator
Barbara Thompson
Related Publications
Additional Information
Related Exhibitions
- Polynesian Tapa: Decorated Barkcloth from Tonga and Samoa
- Wearing Wealth and Styling Identity: Tapis from Lampung, South Sumatra
- Ukara: Ritual Cloth of the Ekpe Secret Society