Dig into history with us as we explore one of the largest and most formidable ancient textiles ever discovered: the Prisoner Textile. In conjunction with the DMA's exhibition Creatures and Captives: Painted Textiles of the Ancient Andes, three scholars will come together to present exciting new research on this 700-year-old Chimú artwork. The exhibition celebrates collaboration between conservators and curators at the DMA and Houston’s Menil Collection, two museums that steward fragments of the originally 75-foot-long painting from the coast of Peru. The exhibition wraps on February 22, so join us as we send it off in style!
This talk features Dr. Michelle Rich, The Ellen and Harry S. Parker III Associate Curator of Indigenous American Art at the DMA; Dr. Cory Rogge, Director of Conservation at the Menil Collection; and Kari Dodson, Objects Conservator at the Menil Collection.
Michelle Rich, PhD, is The Ellen and Harry S. Parker III Associate Curator of Indigenous American Art. Since joining the DMA in 2018, she has been working to highlight the depth and diversity of Indigenous art across the Americas through exhibitions, publications, and gallery installations. Her curatorial practice bridges archaeology, art history, and museum work, with a focus on rigorous scholarship and amplifying Indigenous voices. She edited The Arts of the Ancient Americas at the Dallas Museum of Art, a 360-page catalogue featuring new research and over 100 new photographs of highlights from the DMA’s Indigenous American art collection. She is currently developing an exhibition about Maya women that features both ancient and contemporary art. Dr. Rich holds a PhD in Archaeology from Southern Methodist University and has been affiliated with the US-Guatemalan Proyecto Arqueológico El Perú-Waka´ since 2003.
Dr. Corina (Cory) Rogge, PhD, is the Director of Conservation at the Menil Collection and President of the American Institute for Conservation. She earned a BA in Chemistry from Bryn Mawr College and a PhD in Chemistry from Yale University, and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center (Houston). Before joining the Menil Collection full time in the summer of 2023, she served as the Andrew W. Mellon Research Scientist at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2013–2023) and the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor in Conservation Science in the Department of Art Conservation at State University of New York Buffalo State College (2010–2013). While much of her research focuses on 20th-century artists, paints, and pigments, she works on materials across all cultures, media, and ages.
Since 2014 Kari Dodson has been an objects conservator at the Menil Collection in Houston. She especially enjoys technical art historical research and using innovative imaging techniques to make visible the invisible. She has held internships and fellowships at the Worcester Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation, and the National Museums of Malawi. Before landing on a career in conservation, she taught ESL, worked on archaeological digs, and was employed at a nuclear reactor.
Learn more about the technical analysis of the textiles in the Creatures and Captives: Painted Textiles of the Ancient Andes Exhibition Journal PDF download.
This series is supported by the Boshell Family Foundation and the DMA’s Boshell Lecture Series Endowment Fund.
To request accessibility accommodations such as ASL interpretation, gallery stools, or wheelchairs, please send an email to access@dma.org.
