Textiles from Asia has contributed tremendously to building the so-called modern world. Joni Zhu’s @dorianissey essay “SILK, WARS, & ASIAS” spirals outwards and backwards, from the cult 1950s silk importer in Hollywood by the name of Oriental Silk back to the coolie trade, the Opium War, Zhang Qian’s Silk Road, and the shanzhai silks of Lucca, Italy. Asia, Zhu shows, is not a place as much at is is an idea engaged by a network of expansion, competition, and racialization—one that begins to come undone by its seams upon closer study. Read in the latest issue of Viscose 03: ASIAS – in stores globally now. 🌠Image credit pic 1: courtesy @harmarabbit, from her book “Oriental Silk” published by Hatje Cantz in 2020z