The new temporary exhibition in the foyer of the Historical Museum of Crete presents 27 examples of Asian headgear for everyday use and special occasions, from the Ioanna Koutsoudaki Collection. The selected material comes from the collector’s recent donation to the Ethnographic Collection of the Society of Cretan Historical Studies, comprising a total of 143 non-Western women’s, men’s and children’s hats/head coverings/head ornaments.

Starting with her first distant journey and collection of items in India in the 1970s, Ioanna Koutsoudaki’s collection of memorabilia was enriched, over a period of three decades, with hundreds of headdresses and head ornaments, mostly handmade creations of ethnic groups of the Asian continent (India, China, Tibet, Vietnam, Thailand, Afghanistan, Cambodia, etc.) and North Africa. The Headgear exhibition presents aspects of Asian material culture, with the exhibits, with bilingual captions in the display cases and wall installations, mentally transporting visitors to distant lands. With the “hat” as the focus, we come into contact with distinct approaches to aesthetics, symbolic decorations and traditional styles, as they are reflected in items of formal or everyday costumes and clothing, which function as markers of ethnic identity, gender or age group, as markers of the wearer’s public identity.

 

We become witnesses to the cultural richness of ethnic groups such as the Akha of Southeast Asia with their imposing silver-studded headdresses (their weight indicative of the wearer’s wealth), the Yao and Hmong with their characteristic woven children’s caps with pompoms, or the Newar of Nepal with their elaborately decorated women’s head rings for carrying babies. The exhibition presents hats with relief embroidery, with symbolic motifs from China and Central Asia, a male turban as an Indian mark of caste, while the most striking of the four wall installations is a gold-decorated headdress from the traditional Apsara Cambodian dance theatre.

Ioanna Koutsoudaki

Exhibition Contributors

General Curator: Angeliki Baltatzi, Curator of the SCHS Ethnographic Collection
Installation: Despina Pertselaki, Angeliki Baltatzi, Michalis Neonakis, Stelios Chatzakis 
Supporting research: Eleni Gagiolaki, social anthropology intern
Translation: Rosemary Tzanaki
3D design and printing: Manolis Stratigis
Graphic design: Pencilcase
Printing: Epigraph

 

Useful information on the HEADGEAR Exhibition

Duration: June – September 2024 (extended until January 2025)
Exhibition space: Historical Museum of Crete Foyer (2nd floor) | 27 Sofokli Venizelou Avenue (Heraklion, Crete) | Τel.: 2810 283219, ext. 101 | www.historical-museum.gr
Summer opening hours: Monday - Sunday, 09:00-17:00

*The admission fee includes entry to the temporary exhibitions of the Historical Museum of Crete. Exhibition Yannis Tsarouchis. The Viewer and the Viewed  from the Zacharias G. Portalakis Modern Art Collection.