The project adopted technological approaches to support learning around clothes mending and embedding e-textiles within a repair practice. QR codes on fabric samples were trialled to increase access to guidance and instructional videos that would assist the mending community to learn skills, deepen and grow their knowledge. I worked with Ealing Repair Cafe to examine how they support skill building, wellbeing and emotional resilience in the local community.
The VOICE project is co-funded by the EU and UKRI to encourage citizen engagement using artist-led innovation. It proposes that artist’s thinking can bring a new view to tackling citizen problems in novel ways. Artists start their process by being driven with citizen concern and engage their intervention within specific communities to encourage citizens to take the necessary action in value creation. The challenge is in building trust with the community but also defining communities’ intrinsic motivation.
Methodology
- Thinking through making.
- Co-design workshops: exploring textile techniques, refashioning, upcycling
- Documentation: filming, audio and image capture.
- Sample demonstrations, making, reusing offcuts.
- Group problem-solving.
Learning foundation pattern piecing
Co-design
- Workshops to demonstrate textile techniques, refashioning, filming, audio and image capture.
- Sample demonstrations, making, reusing offcuts.
- Group problem-solving.
Transforming t-shirts into yarn – a way to engage new audiences to excitement of garment reuse
Working with Ealing Repair Cafe I investigated the value of e-textile practice samplers to increase participation in clothes repair. Stitch samplers have historically provided a space to master stitching skills and build confidence. This project is positioned as a trial for embedding e-textiles within a repair practice and adapting novel technological approaches to support mending. E-textile stitch samplers will be used to increase material knowledge and facilitate people to practice a range of techniques before transferring them to a garment. There will be an opportunity to bring experts and novices repairers together to discuss and adapt their activities to make them available to other practitioners.
Ealing Repair Café community who were set up in Spring 2019 and have regular monthly meetups around Acton and Ealing to encourage people to value, repair or alter clothes rather than discard them. Volunteers teach people how to mend their clothes and encourage people from the local community to come along to sessions with damaged items and problem mends to get advice, lessons, inspiration and guidance.
Engagement Methods
- Design-led workshops: Mapping, Scaffolding
- Engagement methods: Attending events, learning from the group, getting to know the volunteers and their techniques, trust building
Ealing Repair Cafe, West Ealing Library
The methodology was participatory, using co-design methods to involve Ealing Repair Café volunteers in the design process. Methods of engagement use hands-on making and design activities to align with the groups values around in-person events, cooperative making and teaching skills.
One outcome of the project included setting up an Instagram account to showcase ERC activities, repair and upcycle techniques, tell their stories and the workshops they run with the local community. This is a space to disseminate their inspiring work and reveal the social and environmental value of actions to rethink waste.
The following impact areas closely align with the groups’ values:
Positive social outcomes
- Agency
- Learning
- Emotional and Psychological
Environmental/Economic
- Waste reduction
- Resource translation
The project contributes to SDG12, which engages people in behaviour that promotes responsible consumption and production. Repair and reuse actions are opportunities to help reduce consumption and our reliance on virgin, natural resources by putting existing resources back into circulation. The values of the ERC correspond with the goals of SDG12 and promote repair and reuse actions to lower consumption and reduce waste. Repair and reuse are pathways to more sustainable, responsible consumption practices, a transition to a Circular Economy and a more efficient use of resources.
Textile Techniques – Reverse Applique
Lucie Hernandez received funding from a Horizon Europe project called VOICE (https://www.voice-
community.eu/). Through artist-led interventions (ATSIs), VOICE encourages citizen engagement to tackle local and regional environmental challenges effectively. To learn more about the VOICE community, visit the project website or social media channels (LinkedIn, Instagram).
