To identify the areas where, how and why you might incorporate…
– Climate, racial and social justice principles
– Link to existing activity at a personal, classroom course team, school/college and local-global level
– Note any gaps using the integrating educational ethics in the curriculum reflective matrix (this is connected with UKPSF)
– Add space/place for innovation or new activity / other
The second half of the afternoon we had to create or propose a perspective method of mapping a teaching practice.
As a technician, I broke it down over the 10 units (3 year course) and wanted to build awareness to climate. social and racial justice into the course. You can see that the directions of BA1 and BA2 are different starting points and separated by Skills and Study, it counter acts what I feel is missing and what areas could be improved on.
BA1 – Unit 1 – Skills based unit
A very mandatory unit, building and learning how to use the machines and techniques to benefit from the course, bringing in digital learning tools such as padlet to bridge dialogue and provide space for imagery upload and anonymity around participating in social activities. As well as guided “Taught” sessions around history, contemporary and material referencing that co-exists with technical sessions eg;
Fair isle colour work, the history, typical yarns used, their climate effectiveness, contemporary practice in Fair-isle today (opportunity to use imagery/designers work from non-white sources).
Matching a physical/tactile activity with references and outcomes allows and opens the students to reflective and critical dialogue around why this is a popular technique and how to use it in their practice. The main outcome for this would be sample construction with awareness around yarn usage, ethical understanding and its climate impact.
I am hoping it falls in line with decarbonization, de-colonialism and also system thinking, stately jumping base line 0 and going straight to baseline 1, this research awareness or technical report could benefit from racial awareness in the student practice.
BA1 – Unit 2 – Disrupt and Design
Current affairs in contemporary design practice, allows students to bridge an understanding of how to research, using tools like the library or journals to study and connect their practice with more eco-conscious design decisions. I would see this as a reflect and analysis the general craft and consider the students to think about ‘recycle, reuse and reduce’ practices and how we can use massive over produced materials to generate new design solutions.
Taught skills, would fall in line, with traditional crafts, mending and repair methods and how visible mending can be used to re-construct discarded material as new products. This would also teach about garment design and analysis on how garments are constructed and put together and deconstructed.
The outcome of this unit, would be to re-build/shape pre-loved garments with a new lease of life, considering how traditional craft techniques can be used to enhance or re-direct the intended purpose of the original design. Techniques like, Kitchener, mending, grafting, steeking, dying, felting, embroidery, hand knitting and crochet.
I am hoping this falls in line with Future thinking, system thinking, social justice.
BA1 – Unit 3 – CRAFT
Craft is building or honing ones skill set and this unit is about additional skill development with a purpose. Having a purpose in craft allows the satisfaction of the completion emotion to retain and remember skills being taught, physical tactile and wearable outcomes allows techniques to be really incorporated into ones practice, something I feel is missing from the course at this stage in learning.
While the outcome is motivated around skill building, the intended purpose is a reflection on the previous units and putting our climate, social and racial awareness into practice, a test of sorts that allows students to engage with body, form and space in illustrating a design for their intended outcome, be it fashion, art, science or something radically personal. The skills taught would be adaptions or garment related refinement on unit 1 skills, with garment calculations and yarn usage calculations.
The other side of this, would be taught sessions around, mass production and ethical and bespoke production services, micro settings and circular systems in building brands and producing for commercial or bespoke outcomes. This allows sessions to be devoted to finishing and milling process, water consumption and traceability and ethical yarn sourcing, what this means for the climate and how impactful is our design footprint at this stage and at a much larger scale.
This Unit could be collaborative and be built alongside Menswear/ Womens/ bespoke/ contour/ sportswear etc, although in the past, the collaborations between womens and menswear students and textiles students hasn’t been ethical or respectful to the textile students and the textile students are seen as a service rather than designers or equals. Most importantly I think with an ethical collaborative ‘guide’ or ‘code’ in place that supports an equal partnership around design/outcome this could led into an inclusive unit that celebrates diversity in all of the justice aspects.
The main outcome would be a finished garment /look with supported evidence on traceability, ethical sourcing, water usage and production/labour costs, backed by a technical pack that supports this information ready for production (with a found production company/logistics quote of how much this would cost).
BA2 – Unit 4 – STUDY
Study is a refinement process of upgrading or adapting higher levels of skills. This is a focus on other methods of the same techniques, refining and executing finesse in details and quality. As this is about repeatable sample making, the sustainable aspect would be considering our material consumption and how we digest the usage into our sample making. The idea of dead stock, repurposing and unwinding, providing students with alternative sources of raw material for designs, with a problem to solve and execute. With this adaption skills are used in a series of “sample swatch” or “fashion Swatch” that is later presented at PV, a world recognized textile supplying trade show. As the selling point is the the combination of colour and techniques, dead stock yarn can come in handy and lower our carbon footprint/emissions, students would still need to understand what, where and how these yarns ended up in dead stock, as the composition and origin of the yarns.
The outcome of this unit is commerciality with a sustainable framework, students should be able to recognize the global travel map of how yarns from its origin source to be spun and the sold, to later be found in dead stock facilities due to over buying/consumption. Repurposing the intended outcome of these yarns into new designs to resell, means students can understand the profitability behind sustainable material sourcing and benefiting from this in their young career paths.
The physical outcome, would a series of final “fashion swatches” that show technical skills in trims and finishes that could be sold to fashion designers/brands at a trade show. Entrepreneurial skill building with design solution in future thinking methods of de-carbonization and sustainability.
BA2 – Unit 5 – Disrupt and Digital
Currently our unit 5 is a placement term, I would rather suggest a placement year which can provide students with more possibilities and build on their professional skill sets. 10 weeks isn’t truly enough and at the time scale of things in the world of fashion and textiles its very much in awkward positions and disproportionate in each group setting.
It would good to set up a disruptive digital model in textiles combining digtal programming skills with fashion skills like (clo3d) and using a digital studio model (DSM). The journey into digital knit, is transferring knowledge from craft techniques into the digital programs, how to visually see structures in a symbol method and the problem solving and limitations that comes with machine capabilities. This unit is production outlet based that would not necessarily need to have a make, but can channel the digital prototyping and alternative textile technologies skill building to generate and curate a series of ideas that are either textile samples or garment.
With this unit, digital pattern cutting could be explore and how ‘gore’s and seamless technology are pioneering sustainable outcomes with less waste, less overall energy consumption and basically ready to wear straight from the machine, although we don’t have such technology, the idea of innovative practice and techniques are the technology can be used to disrupt more ‘manual’ based making processes.
BA2 – Unit 6 – Digital Craft
Still focusing on the digital aspect of this year’s technical learning process, the digital craft unit is a combination of the previous two units (4,5) with also the BA1 units to create a final look or textile based around digital interfaces and technology combined with craft techniques. Exploring tradition methods with digital prototyping, this unit is a realization unit on how processes and production need to find circular solutions to combat the mass consumption/production of textiles on a global platform, bringing in innovative case studies and methods around sustainable business models that reflect this ethos in the new contemporary setting of where fashion / textiles is/should be heading.
Digital is such a frontier in sustainability and it comes with its own issues around this as well, although the the consequences of usage need to be understood and the outcomes for this unit is to build a understanding of how this practice is energy consuming and takes a different look as its negative outlooks on that of traditional craft, finalizing a more rounded education in sustainability with in knitted textiles at undergraduate level, opening up students to more careers in textiles, fashion, innovation and production.
I would really like to focus on this unit and devise how a surplus of how 18 students can benefit machine usage and time scales with other students combating time on the digital machines, how would labour of staff and teaching come into this unit and how would assessment be taken into account.
BA3 – Units 7-8-9 – Identity in Craft/Design
Building a designer identity is a problem solving battle between yourself and the work you want to do, its also considerate of skills and what is honed and were lacks ability. I combined BA3 Units as selective modes of study in enhancing and retracing that of previous, with more of a focus on the student studying, BA3 is about providing the space and technology to create a dialogue between opportunity, trust and curiosity.
The outcomes would be selective based, but with small reflective reports on these areas, with craft for example it would a reflective report on the carbon footprint of their collections or in digital it could be benefactor of using and prototyping in a digital nomadic space that could transform working conditions for independent designers.
There is also an agreement/ proposal needed to be in place between student/tutor/institute, this agreement is a professional relationship and agreement that focuses on delivery and outcome, more in the sense of a research method, with a conclusive physical/digital outcome combining or showing an articulated method of sustainable practice that entrusts a dialogue between climate, social and racial justice.
Ill finish this idea/mind melt with a image that can be created digitally in knitted textiles.
Qu Bin uses digital software to create realistic knit structures