Photo of Paris Bailey by Keegan Houser. Photo of embroidered textile by Sibila Savage.
An art history major with a yen for hands-on experience, Paris Bailey ’24 followed her passion to the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Thanks to UC Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP), she served as an assistant curator for “In Plain Sight: Jewish Arts and Lives in the Muslim World.” The exhibition reveals the cultural confluences among Jews and Muslims who lived under Muslim empires from North India to Spain from the seventh century C.E. until the 20th century.
Having studied Soviet lace-making, Bailey brought a unique skill set. She was thrilled to help launch “In Plain Sight,” which curator Francesco Spagnolo and visiting curator Qamar Adamjee worked toward for several years. The pieces in the exhibition come from a wide geographic area, including Iran, India, and Tunisia. Yet there are clear visual motifs, such as the floral and arboreal embroidery on tapestries called suzanis that were given as part of a wedding dowry.
“I just find it so human, so intricately beautiful, dazzling, colorful.” — Paris Bailey
“The cypress trees are considered a signifier of the tree of life, meaning multiple things — birth, growth to maturity, death, rebirth,” says Bailey, sharing her particular attachment to a suzani (pictured) from Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Bailey notes that suzanis almost always include an intentionally unfinished part as a reminder that the traditional work will continue and that no human being is perfect. “I just find it so human, so intricately beautiful, dazzling, colorful,” she says. “I just have a lot of appreciation for suzani creation, and I would like to share that with more people.”
