This free one-day online event on Thursday 13 May 2021 provided space for people with interests in participatory textile making activities – whether participants, facilitators, researchers or commissioners – to come together and share experiences, insights and challenges.
The event was divided into three sessions, spaced throughout the day. On each session page you will find films and presentations that were made available in advance of the Study Day, and then a recording of the live session:
The presentations were recorded especially for the event; the short films exploring different aspects of participatory textile making were screened in association with FilmGeographies (see below).
Attendees shared comments, questions and textiles (created in response to the invitation to Stitch a Building and as part of the Stitch Meditation activity) on a padlet (a website that anyone can add to). The padlet has now closed to new contributions, but you can download or browse a pdf version of the archived comments:
A follow-on networking session took place on Thursday 3 June to support the Stitching Together community to share new ideas, make new contacts and seed new projects.
FilmGeographies collaboration
For the Study Day Stitching Together joined forces with FilmGeographies to extend our shared interests in exploring innovative research methodologies, and in particular the use of film and video to document and present the making processes at the heart of participatory textile making activities.
Filmmaking allows us to visualise ideas, thoughts and hypotheses and to capture, frame and document process – but also to explore the affective, non-representational and performative, rendering visible what is often invisible. Film and video convey a connection between place and the things people do, in a different way to text.
The collection of films shared via the Study Day is intended as a starting point from which to initiate discussion around the use of film and video in the research process; the ethics of representation; the practical knowledge, skills and equipment required; and the challenges and limitations of this approach.
Stitching Together 