HISTORIES, TACTILITY AND MATERIAL CULTURE: STUDIES ON CHINESE BELT TOGGLES
Elizabeth Carter, Shuxia Chen, Min-Jung Kim and Claire Roberts
Thursday, 18 July 2024
6:00pm - 7:15pm
Chau Chak Wing Museum
University of Sydney
A panel conversation to launch the book Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature (2024), co-presented by the Power Institute, the Powerhouse Museum, and Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney.
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Curators, historians and scientists will be brought together to introduce the understudied cultural objects of the Chinese belt toggle, known as zhuizi (坠子). Similar to their better-known Japanese counterparts netsuke, these small carved ornaments offer a rare glimpse into everyday life in early modern China.
Toggles were a common feature of traditional Chinese garments from the 17th century but were scarcely collected. More than personal accessories, toggles were wearable symbols, embodying Chinese folk traditions and cultural beliefs. The exhibition Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature, a collaboration between the Powerhouse Museum and Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, reveals one of the world’s largest collections of these extraordinary objects.
The associated publication, Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature, co-published with Power Publications and edited by the exhibition’s curators, introduces these unique objects to a broader audience for the first time, pairing academic enquiry with detailed photographic documentation of the exhibition and catalogue of 80 toggles.
This conversation between editors and authors takes its lead from the book, combining historical, curatorial and scientific perspectives to unlock the mysteries of the Chinese toggle—an everyday object long overlooked, but uniquely able to speak to 300 years of Chinese culture and across all levels of society.
Image: Toggle made from a walnut depicting a frog on a lotus leaf, China. Powerhouse collection, gift of Alastair Morrison, 1992, 92/480.
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The Power Institute is a Foundation based at the University of Sydney dedicated to understanding the visual world, through art and visual culture. We support research, publish texts, and organise public programs.
The Power Institute would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land upon which the University of Sydney, and the Power Institute, is built. As we share our own knowledge, teaching, learning and research practices, may we also pay respect to the knowledge embedded forever within the Aboriginal Custodianship of Country.
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