Exhibition place：Textile Conservation Gallery

Exhibition time：2013.9 - 2013.12

Kesi refers to silk products made with continuous warps and discontinuous wefts. It is woven with small shuttles based on different sections and colors of the pattern, resulting in clear depiction of the pattern. For such "hard edge" effect, it is also called "cut silk". It is highly labor and time consuming to produce a kesi work, but various motifs such as flowers and grass, birds and animals can be exquisitely produced with high flexibility. It is believed that one inch of kesi textile is worth one inch of gold.

Kesi technique has undergone at least 4000 years of evolution in China. Starting from the daily items woven with wool in discontinuous wefts during the Bronze Age, to the emergence of kesi in the early Tang dynasty, then to the imitating calligraphy and painting using kesi during the Song dynasty, mass application of kesi with gold thread in Yuan dynasty, including the combination of kesi with kemao,embroidery and painting in Qing dynasty, up to the present. For thousands of years, kesi has been an amazing and outstanding art form. As a crystallization of Chinese silk craftsmanship and art, kesi technique was inscribed into the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009 as a key component of Sericulture and Silk Craftsmanship of China, which leads to its better inheritance and protection.

As an important program of the 2013 Hangzhou International Fiber Art Triennial,the World of Wefts and Warps--Exhibition of Chinese Kesi Art was held to appreciate the fascination of kesi technique and the complexity of fiber art.