2 December 2025, 6.00 PM:  Dr Jamie Forde (University of Edinburgh), Silk in Colonial Mexican Churches—Transoceanic Ecologies and Indigenous Ontologies

Abstract: In the early sixteenth century, Spanish colonists attempted to bring silk raising technology to Mexico, including live silkworms and mulberry saplings. In most places, this was unsuccessful, but in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Indigenous communities took up silk raising and the industry thrived for the better part of a century. In this talk, I examine how Mixtec peoples both produced raw silk for profit and simultaneously purchased silk vestments to adorn early churches. I consider how such objects were valued in part because they were folded into Indigenous worldviews surrounding the nature or ontology of sacred substances.

About the speaker: Jamie Forde is a lecturer of premodern art at the University of Edinburgh. His work engages both Art History and Archaeology of prehispanic and colonial Mexico. His work has previously appeared in journals including Ancient Mesoamerica, Latin American Antiquity, Mexicon, Colonial Latin American Review, and Ethnohistory.

To join the talk, please use the Zoom link and log in details below: 

Meeting ID: 821 4106 6537 // Passcode: 272436