The POP team have been hard at work this year researching, reconstructing and re-imagining 200 years of clothing inventions from the European Patent Archives. Our practice research involves stitching together theory, methods and making into three-dimensional arguments.
So far we have made over 40 calico toiles (closer to 60 when we count iterative versions) of inventions from 1820-2020 and spanning across our 6 themes: EXPANDING citizen, ACTIVE citizen, SECRET citizen, LEAKING citizen, WORKING citizen and RESOURCEFUL citizen.
Speculative sewing = feminist speculation + reconstruction practices
We recently started to document our toile collection into what we are calling a Speculative Sewing Archive or SSA for short.
‘Speculative sewing’ combines feminist speculation and reconstruction practices. There is an open access article on our practice recently published in Social Studies of Science.
Although we have been conducting an ethnography of making and photographing the entire process, and which is central to our analysis, we wanted to generate a more formal collection of artefacts on bodies and in action.
Our practice research involves stitching together theory, methods and making into three-dimensional arguments.
We spent weeks tidying up the toiles, snipping threads, finishing, organising and ironing the collection. We also searched the studio for all the props we have been using to try out and make sense of the collection in context (- we have growing eclectic collection of things – from tent poles and walking sticks to old bicycles and dolls).
We invited a range of people linked in some way to the project to be involved – they are team members, PhD students, collaborators, visual sociology students and colleagues.
We asked them to wear something black and we dressed them in various calico inventions; from 1860s inflatable hoop skirts to 1940s convertible aviatrix all-in-ones.
… from 1860s inflatable hoop skirts to 1940s convertible aviatrix all-in-ones….
We worked with Britt Hatzius (an artist, photographer and also sewer!) who captured many different kinds of images: 360 shots to create animated gifs, close ups and replicas of the patent image (where possible).
We will be using these images and animations on the website, social media and in upcoming publications.
Many thanks to Britt (for not only photographing but also ironing everything the day before), George (for excellent organisation), Ellen, Julie and Alice (for all the toile development), and of course to everyone who participated on the day (Silvia, Ellen, Talitha, Meara, Rose, Tom, Hennie).
