My work with different audiences and communities continues to develop, highlighting the power of textiles to document, connect and empower. In 2022-3 I have not only created new work, I have written articles about the value of textile making from the perspective of a practitioner, academic and ethnographic embroiderer embedded in community engagement.
A new journal article with Professor Fiona Hackney is out in the Journal of Applied Arts and Health. Entitled “Crafting with a purpose: How the ‘work’ of the workshop makes, promotes and embodies well-being” is an important contribution to creative research methods.
This article examines two community arts textile projects to consider the relation- ship between workshops, as method (and methodology), and the research/knowl- edge that emerges from and through them. The ‘workshop’ is understood as the structural relationship between people, processes, materials and place, while ‘work’ is the knowledge/research that emerges from these interactions. While different in intent and structure, both projects share concerns about making, health and well- being. Craftivist Garden #wellMAKING worked with a network of local amateur craft groups across the United Kingdom to think critically about health and well- being, while Kotha and Kantha examined how stitch serves as an alternative well- making strategy for a group of Bangladeshi-born women living in Manchester, United Kingdom. The article argues that thinking about the workshop as a ‘hold- ing form’ and/or ‘bloom space’ and paying attention to the stories told and arte- facts (knowledge objects) made in workshops is vital to understanding their value.
Featured Manc of the Month (Feb 2023) thanks to CottononMcr for promoting my work.
In Nov 2022 I presented at the Culture and Mental Health conference at the Museum Dr Guslain in Ghent, Belgium. My work also features in Connective Thread, the exhibition at the Museum curated by Claire Wellesley Smith and my patchwork installation remains on display in the gardens of the museum until the summer.
In May 2022, I wrote a short article about the power of making and the Grenfell Memorial Quilt (five years on) for the Conversation.com, an online publication.
In Feb 2023 I talked about my wellbeing research with the construction industry at the online‘‘Sustainability in Construction: Towards Net-Zero symposium organised by IGPP Institute for Govt and Public Policy.
I also shared research with Pearl Academy in India in Feb, discussing good practice and ethical concerns for stitching with communities, hopefully we can work together to explore new ways to develop stitched textiles for the 21st century.
Published: 1st August 2023
Themes: collaborative, construction crafts, embroidery engagement, exhibition health and well being identity, research sustainable text
