Textile Society of America
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Date of this Version
2024
Document Type
Presentation
Citation
Textile Society of America 2024 Symposium
Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles, November 12-17, 2024, a virtual event
Abstract
Regenerative agriculture disruptor Fibershed embraces and gives voice to the fullness of textile paradigms, economies, societies, ecologies, and skill traditions, seeks to address and rectify the sins and the promises of textile making and textile futures, and promotes healthy, holistic wellbeing. Fibershed is a movement of farmers, fashion activists, and makers growing a new textile economy. Founded in 2012 in a bioregion in Northern California, the community has grown to more than 75 chapters worldwide. Fibershed touts a soil-to-soil paradigm that asks us to consider the entire lifecycle of our textiles. It proposes a climate beneficial, regenerative system whose scope encompasses the history, knowledge, artistry, and social ramifications of our relationship with textiles in every form. Whether we identify as a textile artist, craftsperson, designer, student, producer, collector, or enthusiast, we must radically alter our understanding of where our textiles come from, how they are made, who made them, under what conditions, and where they go when we are "done" with them. To build a livable future we must extend the spaces in which we are critiquing and rewriting textile history, practicing textile-based skills, understanding and exploring material, and confronting textiles' attendant ecological, political, economic, and social impacts.
Included in
Art and Materials Conservation Commons, Art Practice Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Fashion Design Commons, Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Museum Studies Commons, Sustainability Commons
Comments
Published by the Textiles Society of America
Copyright 2024, the author. Used by permission