Textile Narratives from the Front Room

Overview

Rose Sinclair:

In this event I will discuss my research practice in relation to Dorcas Clubs and Societies set up by Caribbean women on their arrival in the UK in the 1950s and 60s. By exploring female textile networks as a catalyst for social and economic change. I will use life stories and oral histories of some of the Black women I have interviewed to discuss how I unpick the textiles created by these networks that embody both what is called material culture and through what can be termed diasporic tales.

I will discuss how understanding this history provides new ways of thinking about textiles networks from marginalised groups and their place in textile design and innovation, as well as the rise of ‘safe making spaces’, and a narrative of ‘quiet activism.

I will use the space of the ‘Caribbean Front Room’ and a project I initiated in  Lewisham Shopping Centre  in 2016 as a starting point to discuss aesthetics of the Black diaspora through the textiles made in community settings and how this project provided a safe space for the community, particularly black women, to gather, make and share textile skills through their culture, inviting shared understandings. I will discuss the way that personal and institutional archives have shaped the research I do and how they intertwined to enable a practice based research project to blossom  and new textile stories to emerge

Students will come away from the event learning about approaches to practice based research and how different approached to the use of archives can impact on their own practice. You will also see that public engagement as a process can lead to wider stories of creative practice and understanding of communities and the aesthetic and appreciation of the work.

Speaker bio:

Rose Sinclair MBE is a Lecturer in Design (Textiles) and Design Education at Goldsmiths, University of London, with a passion for textiles combined with stories that can be told through cloth, especially those often absent from the design discourse. Her PhD research focusses on Black British women and the diaspora and their crafting practices and making networks, and relationships between amateur and professional makers. Rose’s current publications include “Tracing back to trace forwards: What does it mean/take to be a Black textile designer” in Elaine Igoe (ed.) Textile Design Theory in the Making (Bloomsbury, 2021), and “Does Design do Race” in Alison Hardy (ed.) Debates in Design & Technology Education (2^nd edn., Routledge, forthcoming Dec. 2022).  Rose’s works utilises public engagement and participatory immersive workshops, in spaces such as the V&A London, The Garden Museum and the British Library, House for an Art Lover, and Timespan in Helmsdale, Scotland. Her work on Dorcas Clubs has featured on national TV in ‘Craftivism: Making a Difference’ BBC4 Feb 2021, and she has featured in discussing design in  ‘Your Kitchen: 60 years of Fads and Gadgets’ Channel 5 Aug 2024,  alongside interviews on BBC Woman’s Hour, and BBC Witness History.

Rose was co-curator with Rowan Bain, Principal Curator at the William Morris Gallery, of the touring exhibition Althea McNish: Colour is Mine, at the William Morris Gallery and The Whitworth, Manchester (2022-2023). Rose is Editor Co-Chief of Textile: Journal of Cloth and Culture, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Textile Research and Practice and is a member of the AHRC Stitching Together Network. She is Joint Editor-in-Chief of Textile: Journal of Cloth and Culture and is Co-Editor of the Journal of Textile Research and Practice. Previously Chair of the Equity Advisory Council at the Crafts Council, Rose is now a Trustee at the Crafts Council, a Trustee of the Textile Society UK and an Heritage Crafts Ambassador Heritage Crafts UK, and an Associate member of the APPG Group for Craft, and a founding member of the UBAE (United Black Art Educators) which is part of the NSEAD.  Rose was awarded an MBE in 2024 for Services to the Arts. 

Rose Sinclair social media: 

Twitter: @dorcasstories 

Instagram: @dorcasstories

Profile: https://www.gold.ac.uk/design/people/sinclair/