The practice interfaces are a series of hybrid, time-based, e-textile samplers for repair that demonstrate methods of expanding our conception of textile repair practices. Designed to express the knowledge and skills offered by the Ealing Repair Cafe as part of the VOICE project, the practice interfaces take the form of e-textile samplers, objects that sit somewhere between sketch and instruction.
Zip Connection
Each piece contains conductive elements that enable the textile itself to perform knowledge through interaction. For instance, everyday elements used regularly in repair activities such as zips, poppers and buttons have been transformed into playful, interactive elements that play sound clips, trigger LEDs or unfold filmed instructions.
My work explores how people access knowledge, develop skills, and participate in both human and computational systems through creative, collaborative forms of learning. Within it, I increasingly position repair as a framework that can reveal issues linked to care, stewardship, maintenance and participation. Repair enables us to ask questions around; Who is allowed to repair? Who has access to knowledge? What skills are valued? What gets maintained and what gets discarded? Who is responsible for care? How do people develop relationships with objects and systems over time?
Repair cultures are the social, material, and cultural practices that emerge around maintenance, repair, adaptation, care, reuse, and stewardship.
Agency
Questions around how agency is developed are core to the work and foreground the ability to make decisions and act meaningfully within a system. Participating in actions that produce change and desired results helps people develop confidence and can lead to empowerment, skills, knowledge, stewardship, ownership.
