WE ARE SEEKING PRACTITIONERS TO DELIVER ‘CREATIVE TEXTILE REPAIR’ COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT WORKSHOPS IN LOCATION ACROSS KIRKLEES AS PART OF THE WOVEN FESTIVAL 2023.
What is MISSION TO MEND?
Mission to Mend is an exciting strand of the Woven Festival 2023 which aims to address pressing issues for people and planet, drawing inspiration from the rich textile heritage of the area.
Every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truck load of clothes is burnt or buried in landfill. Waste is prevalent in every part of the fashion industry, as a result of overproduction, over consumption and problematic end-of-life solutions. The pressure is mounting on fashion brands to lower their impacts on people, the planet, and animals. But we, as consumers and global citizens, also have a role to play.
Reduce, Rewear, Recycle, Repair, Resell.
“In a disposable society, to repair is to rebel” – The Economist, 2019.
Mission to Mend will be delivered in five locations across Kirklees in 2023 – Golcar, Meltham, Mirfield, Holmfirth, Heckmondwike. In each location a focused community day of activity will be delivered as part of the WOVEN festival to celebrate and promote mending and creative repair. In the run up to each event we plan to deliver a series of ‘creative repair’ hand sewing workshops to develop an appetite for mending and to build audiences for the festival events.
The community events will focus on the act of mending, the creative repair of clothes, and how this relates to:
- the local textile heritage of each location (and the wider Kirklees area),
- the environment,
- community,
- mental health and wellbeing,
- repair skills development:
- and intergenerational skill sharing.
‘Creative Textile Mending’ Community Engagement Workshop Leader Opportunity
We have been supported by funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund and other partners and supporters to deliver a series of workshops in the run up to and during the festival. We are looking to build a pool of artists who can deliver textile mending and creative repair workshop sessions in all or some of the above locations.
Each workshop facilitator must be open to working collaboratively with the community , to share and develop creative hand sewing repair skills for clothing.
By creative repair we mean artists and creative people who have skills to share with the community in terms of practical repair skills – e.g. Sewing on a button, hemming a garment, but who are also interested in exploring a creative approach to repair – this could be by creating a fun knee patch for a pair of childrens trousers, a beautiful embroidered sashiko repair, or darning a much loved jumper with a moth hole. We are keen that the act of repair itself is elevated and celebrated to include, but to also go beyond invisible mending skills. It would be desirable for workshop leaders to have an interest in the local textile heritage of the area.
We are looking to build a pool of approximately 10 artists with the capacity to deliver sessions, and we are flexible about how many sessions you can deliver to fit around your existing commitments but we would envisage you working to deliver a minimum of 2 sessions in total.
We are particularly interested in artists and creative practitioners, with relevant experience either living or working in a Kirklees postcode or with strong local connections to the area.
