Make/Shift
Linking Craft and Technology for Sustainable Textile Practices
The future is here and it’s damn comfortable. Gone are the times of hard
labour, mending and making do. Technological progress has brought us
freedoms and abundance that our great grand parents could never have
imagined. Life is good. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. It can’t last. Our current
comforts weigh heavily on the ecosystem, and we remain distanced from
the problems they create, leaving other people to deal with our mess.
The mass-production of textiles provides a damning example of
our current destructive consumer lifestyle. It’s time to take some
responsibility and make a change. Design might help us to do just that.
To understand the role of design in this time of climate crisis, design
researcher Michelle Baggerman turns to the past. She explores the
impacts and costs of technological development, and how archaic
forms of textile production can provide more than aesthetic inspiration
for design. Through this exploration, she uncovers inherent
sustainability in craft practices. She discusses smart ways to link this
craft sustainability to modern materials and technology and encourages
tradition and innovation to reinforce rather than replace each other.
Designing objects to generate questions and insights about our current
system, Michelle helps make the shift to a sustainable textile future.