Rehousing Traditional Chinese Opera Costumes and QiPaos in Vertical Storage System

FAIN: PG-280897-21

Museum of Chinese in America (New York, NY 10013-3601)
Yue Ma (Project Director: January 2021 to September 2023)

The purchase of vertical storage units with hangers, padding, and cloth rods, along with hands-on training, for the rehousing of four collections of textiles, including 117 opera costumes and 330 QiPaos (traditional Chinese dresses), from the Museum of Chinese in America, formerly the Museum of Chinese in the Americas (MOCA). These textiles were damaged in a January 2020 fire and previously had been housed in textile boxes that were overfilled due to space constraints. After the fire they were sent to two professional documentary recovery firms for immediate treatment and then returned to MOCA. A December 2020 Mellon-funded assessment determined that the next steps for conservation work would be to fully stabilize and rehouse the collection. With NEH funding, A. M. Art Conservation LLC would conduct a workshop for MOCA staff and interns, and students from the Fashion Institute of Technology, to identify materials and methods for rehousing the collection, followed by an implementation phase in which staff and interns would professionally unpack and rehouse the textiles in more secure and accessible storage.

The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) seeks funding from the NEH to professionally rehouse 117 opera costumes and 330 QiPaos (traditional Chinese dresses) that have been water damaged following a 5-alarm fire that tore through MOCA’s Collections and Research Center in January 2020. Since this catastrophic event, these valuable textiles have been confined to small non-archival boxes where they are suffering from fabric creases and abrasion. MOCA’s staff and interns will be trained and advised by professional conservators to unpack the materials from the textile boxes and to rehouse them. MOCA will also purchase vertical storage units with hangers, padding, and cloth rods where these textiles could be properly rehoused. This work is essential to ensure that these textiles embodying the transnational and intergenerational histories of the Chinese in America maintain their quality for years to come.