Alice Kettle: Thread Bearing Witness
- Submitting institution
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Manchester Metropolitan University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 228333
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom
- Brief description of type
- A collection of creative works; textile artefacts, collaborative workshop programme, public participation project.
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- September
- Year
- 2018
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
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C - Design
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This complex, multi-component project involved multiple activities delivered with refugees, artists, children and the wider public to interrogate migration and cross-cultural understanding using stitched textiles. Complementary public-engagement activities through Stitch-A-Tree employed stitch as unifying symbol in support of refugees, creating a ‘forest’ through over 10,000 contributions. Supported by Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund enabled activities to be undertaken at scale utilised making as a means to engage with marginalized people and evidence the broader issues of migration and social injustice. Multiple artworks were exhibited at the Whitworth, Manchester (2018-19) and British Textile Biennale (2019).
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This multi-component project interrogates migration and cross-cultural understanding using stitched textiles. Textiles is used as metaphor for migration and stitch as a means to represent the lived experience of contemporary migrants in a polycentric way. The project centres on the individual refugee voice, evolving an approach to enable trust, equity and co-creativity to prosper through stitch as a unifying non-verbal yet culturally distinct language. The making is utilized as a means to engage with, and be informed by, marginalized people and evidence the broader issues of migration and social injustice. It seeks to empower the individual through the agency of craft, representing human dignity through ambitious collaborative artworks, contributions of imagery and works from refugees in European camps, and in UK. The project was realised through multiple artworks, exhibited at Whitworth, Manchester (2018-19) and British Textile Biennale (2019) developing an original model of co-creation and new hybrid forms of pattern and practice. Multiple activities are delivered with refugees, artists, public and schools, with stitch opening discourse around people movement. The parallel public-engagement project Stitch-A-Tree explored stitch as unifying symbol in support of refugees, creating a ‘forest’ through over 10,000 contributions. The British Council supported Stitch-A-Tree Karachi Biennale19 involving Pakistani women, and placing their voices central to debates on marginalisation. The scope of the project has attracted extensive comment and sustained satellite strands with 37,000 website visits and over 300,000 visitors across projects. This massive socially-engaged project, supported by Arts Council of GB, HLF and other funders, frames textiles as inherently suited to collaboration, participation and co-creation. It engages movements such as craftivism (Carpenter 2010, Corbett 2013, Greer 2008,), using making for collective empowerment, expression and negotiation, with critical discourse central to its artistic production and dissemination. Significantly, the emphasis here foregrounds inclusion as a means of protest and socio-political change.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -