Quilting research / writing

HOW TO SPLIT UP RESEARCH OBJECT:

INTRODUCTION / WHAT

THREE CHAPTERS:

1. archiving, heritage and inheriting scraps
2. Scraps / reusing digital media/elements/artefacts
3. Clouds/ servers, digital spaces or collecting/ connecting(?)

WORKING PROCESS

RESULTS / DOCUMENTATION

INTRODUCTION

This is the logbook of : Quilting <p>

This is a project inspired by the Reflections on Quiltmaking’s Future blogpost, written by Penny McMorris, posted on February 2010, published almost exactly 15 years ago. Initially, we started thinking about about making rectangular textile-like shapes out of HTML elements, which eventually led us to experiment with making web extensions patters using Scratch. In our experimental research, we also explored the use of iframes, using them to create online patchworks. Experimenting with these elements made us look further into patterns and traditions of quilting, we asked ourselves; how can we digitise and translate something so handmade through many generations, into a web experience?

Throughout this research object, we explore our theoretical research through three chapters:

1. Archival, heritage and inheriting scraps
2. Scraps / reusing digital media/ elements and artefacts
3. Clouds/ servers, digital spaces or collecting / connecting

WHAT

A quilt is a record of time through scrapped fabrics and cloths. When they come together they make a visual archival of what has been worn and thrown out. Without the present to look back at it, it is not as meaningful. There should be an anchor in time to make a loopback insightful.

Archiving, heritage and inheriting scraps

During the initial phases of this project, we wanted to start by getting a good understanding of quilting. We wanted to familiarise ourselves with the research made about quilting, it’s histories and how it has been implemented in artistic practices. While reading ‘Many Hands Make a Quilt: Short Histories of Radical Quilting’ by Jess Bailey, we became interested in the communal aspect the quilt held, how people got together to craft together scraps of fabric. The quilt was Alsop a useful medium and tool to make things public, to make collective histories recorded through the act of quilting. Quilting made it possible to:

“The absorbent quality of quilts enable them to hold trauma and joy - sometimes simultaneously. The nature of a quilt as a useful heirloom promises that intergenerational care derived from the past will continue to exist in our future.” p. 10.

Similarly to this text, Hannah Wales, in her article called ‘We Crip in Commune; Quilting as Archiving’ writes that quilting is a way to communicate such collective histories while also using it as a tool to archive ‘lived experiences, injustices and using it as a form of resistance’. Quilting gives us the ability to community build while also using textile as a way to shape communities.

After reading through different texts, we also thought about where one gathers these scraps of fabric and where we get such pieces. Do we search for these pieces in charity shops, sale sections in fabric stores or possibly given to us via friends and family? We ended up thinking about our families and inheriting old clothes, jewellery or a handmade quilt your grandmother had made during sewing class.

Martina’s entry:

My grandmother used to sew her own clothes and make due with the scraps that her family had provided for her, and she made sure to pass on this tradition of self sufficiency to my mother. As mentioned in ‘Many Hands Make a Quilt’ by Jess Bailey:

“Quilts hold people and stories.… Throughout history, communities have turned to the collective intimacies of quilting in moments of need.”

Similarly to the practice of quilting, my grandmother held onto scraps of fabric, hoping to give them life in her own projects or use them in times of mending and repaid. In regards to the communal aspect of this practice, I remember during my childhood, my grandma and mother hovering over me as I practice my basic stitching techniques on the sewing machine. I reflect on these times and realise that there was a sense of togetherness as we sewed these scraps together; it was a collective activity, where this skill was being inherited from one generation to the next. When writing this text, I thought about the introduction of ‘The Material Kinship Reader’ by Kris Dittel and Clementine Edwards, where they discuss that:

“Material was made more alive through social encounter, by being passed between lives and hands and carried down the supply chain.”

Apart from the skills I learned through these women, I was also extremely grateful for the materials they had given me. They held onto fabric, beads, needles and yarn for years on end, but then decided to hand everything over to me- I can’t imagine the years of hoarding such valuable materials for their own future projects. I felt a sense of responsibility through inheriting such fabrics and I still hand them old neatly folded in a box back home in Malta.

I had a moment in my life where I thought about inheritance a lot, mainly how all these objects of making and scraps were being passed down to me. During the first months of XPUB, this thought resurfaced and I remember having a dream where I was in the office of a notary public waiting for a will to be read out. I was not sure who had passed away and who was in the room with me, but I remember the atmosphere in the room getting very serious- the notary turned his attention towards me and said:

'Martina, you have inherited something big. You have inherited an important web domain, it's yours now'.

I remember everyone looking at me, gasping and shouting out 'YOU GOT THE BEST ONE!!!'.

When I woke up, I remember thinking how crazy it would be to inherit such a thing from someones will. While working with Sevgi, this dream resurfaced in our conversation and we thought about inheritance and its connecting link with the project; could inheriting a quilt your grandmother gave you be the same as inheriting an online space or a discarded HTML page?