Category: making
Guest blog: stitched together in this dress
The pages on the followthethings.com begin as coursework set for groups of students taking a Geographies of Material Culture module at the University of Exeter. They also their own experiments of cultural activism, and write personal reflective journals on what they learn. Kate Brockie’s group were tasked to find a way to draw public attention to the work of mineral justice NGO Global Witness through cultural activism. They chose a talc mining report to work with. Sarah Ditty, the policy director for the Fashion Revolution movement, had kicked off that part of the talk. How could the work of Global Witness and Fashion revolution be connected? Kate scoured the internet, took out her sewing machine, and made her case.
Eye shadows
Global Witness’s investigations into the ways in which talc mining finances insurgency in Afghanistan shocked me. How could products as harmlessly trivial as eye shadow be fuelling terrorism, disrupting the lives of thousands of civilians (Global Witness 2018)? The Global Witness campaign gave me an unsettling feeling of being entangled in global webs of exploitation, wondering whether everything else I use throughout my day contributes to some kind of injustice. Continue reading
Guest Blog: The Museum of Broken Relationships – transforming objects transforms yourself
We’re taking part in a reading group at the University of Exeter about ‘moving objects’. It’s the lead-up to the Cultural and Historical Geography Research Group’s retreat in January, in which we will each bring a meaningful object to hand over to someone else to live with. We’ll reflect on what we choose, what its care instructions are, and how its meanings move and change with in its new life. In one of our discussions, Daisy Curtis talked about a similar project that her sister-in-law Erica Curtis had developed for the Museum of Broken Relationships. We asked. Could we read something about this? No. Could she write something about it? Yes. So here it is. Thanks Erica.
New garment factory doc: Machines
Watch out for this new film coming to UK cinemas in 2017.
Moving through the corridors and bowels of an enormous and disorientating structure, the camera takes the viewer on a descent down to a dehumanized place of physical labor and intense hardship. This gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India might just as well be the decorum for a 21st century Dante’s Inferno. In his mind-provoking yet intimate portrayal, director Rahul Jain observes the life of the workers, the suffering and the environment they can hardly escape from. With strong visual language, memorable images and carefully selected interviews of the workers themselves, Jain tells a story of inequality, oppression and the huge divide between rich, poor and the perspectives of both (source).
Reviews and interviews
A pig in a hundred pieces: Christien Meindertsma
If you have been looking for a go-to explanation of the ‘follow the thing’ approach to material culture studies, this is your lucky post. Here artist and designer Christien Meindertsma – author of PIG05049 – explains it beautifully.
If you’re curious about PIG05049, we posted her TED talk on it here. She explains more in this video, too.
Talk: keeping conversations going with Political LEGO
At the end of 2015, followthethings.com CEO Ian Cook gave a talk explaining why we re-create scenes described on our website it LEGO, what our shoppers like about them, and what they add to our scholar-activist work. That talk was filmed and you can watch it below. He talked through a series of re-creations made in response to the controversy provoked by a TV documentary film called ‘Primark on the rack’ that was first broadcast 2008, and re-energised by Primark’s response to the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013. It draws upon the work of Political LEGO artists like legofesto, whose conversation with Julia Zielke we published a few months ago. Ian’s talk outlines the argument being made in an academic paper he’s currently writing. Think of this talk as its Trailer….
Bideford Black: exhibition trailer and press release
followthethings.com has been a project partner for The Bideford Black (2nd generation) Arts Council-funded project in North Devon. There are 8 commissions, including one involving CEO Ian making things from this raw pigment with artists Joan and Neville Gabie. A film has been made to document the project and the production of its work. The trailer was released today:
The Press release describes what Neville, Joan and Ian have been doing as follows:
Prompted by Bideford Black, and using a shared sketchbook, artists Neville Gabie and Joan Gabie are holding a ‘dialogue of ideas’ with Cultural Geographer Ian Cook (University of Exeter). Together, the three explore the physicality, social and geological significance of Bideford Black, presenting films of studio drawings and artifacts discovered and created along the way.
The exhibition opens from 3rd October to 13 November, at the Burton Art Gallery & Museum, Bideford, Devon EX39 2QQ. For more details about the Bideford Black project, please see the project blog.
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