Willow Mullins presented a lecture, titled “Kyrgyz Shyrdak: Shifting Tradition and the Journey from Production to Display,” at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. In her lecture, Dr. Mullins traced the global nature of the modern market for traditional art via Kyrgyzstani felt rugs. Because shyrdak is produced in one culture and consumed in another, from yurt to fashionable Western home and even to museum, Dr. Mullins argued that what makes shyrdak “traditional” subtly shifts in the context of a global marketplace.
