The Early Modern Seminar: Ruth Egger (Universität Tübingen)
"Sewing Skins for Survival in the North: Inuit and Sámi Clothing in the European Kunstkammer".
Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Textseminar: contact birgit.tremml@historia.su.se for text and more information.
Abstract
The seminar discusses a chapter from my PhD thesis, Fabricated Geographies: Collecting Global Dress and Textiles in European Cabinets of Curiosities, ca. 1550–1750. The text examines how European collectors and travellers utilised Inuit and Sámi clothing, two artefact groups which have often been researched separately, to conceptualise the North as a geographical space.
The first two sections investigate intersections between Inuit sealskins and Sámi reindeer furs with survival techniques such as hunting, housing, travelling and clothing in travelogues, pamphlets and chorographic descriptions. They discuss how commentators used Arctic dress and sewn equipment to envision Greenland and Sámpi as liminal spaces between the European self and a foreign “other”.
The third section reviews correlations of Inuit and Sámi clothing in the Kunstkammer. Neatly sewn seams, which were necessary for survival, impressed collectors. They materialised a human ingenuity that stimulated colonisers to question their imagined cultural supremacy.
About Ruth Egger
Ruth Egger is research assistant and doctoral student at the Department of Modern History, University of Tübingen. Prior to her current position she worked as curator of Fashion, Textiles and Jewellery at Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts), Berlin.
Ruth Egger. Photo: Fotofabrik Stuttgart.
About the seminar
The seminar will be held together with the Högre seminariet i textilvetenskap (Higher seminars in textile studies) from the History of Art Department, Uppsala University.
Convernors: Birgit Tremml-Werner and Mats Hallenberg
Contact: birgit.tremml@historia.su.se
You can participate in the seminar via Zoom:
https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/my/tidigmodernt
Last updated: 2026-04-20
Source: Department of History