Fixing Our Broken Planet: Fashioned By Nature

As part of two new displays, 'Making Waves: Newry's maritime and mercantile history' and 'Flowering: the embroidering industry in the Mournes', Newry & Mourne Museum has programmed a series of talks and workshops comparing the fashion and textile industries and their local and global environmental impact from the 17th century to the present day.  Using the Museum's own collection of costume, quilts, and textiles we will look at historical and contemporary attitudes to fashion including recycling, upcycling, mending and making.  We will show visitors what their ancestors did and asking them what they can do to fix the environmental emergency caused by fast fashion, sharing stories, ideas and skills.  

The programme includes:

• A chance to see Brigid and the Brat Bhríde,  a new textile piece created by Interwoven, a sub-group of the Dolmen Climate Change Network.  St Brigid’s cloak was woven from reclaimed materials collected from local beaches.
• A workshop showing the mending and manufacturing techniques apparent in our textile collection with examples of mending, upcycling and adornment with a local damask with Deborah Whitte and textile artist Gillian Steel demonstrating historic and contemporary techniques.
• The Exploding Wardrobe, a talk by textile artist Gillian Steel. Our wardrobes offer an explosion of stories about our clothing, where it came from, who made it and how? It also offers huge potential to reconnect to our natural inclinations to make, mend and reinvent not just our clothing by our world and how we live in it.
• A talk by Charlotte McReynolds,  the curator of ‘Ashes to Fashion: A Collection Reborn’ and author of an accompanying book about the history of the museum’s collection of textiles and fashion. During her talk she will explain how the Ulster Museum’s original collection of over 10,000 items of dress and textiles was destroyed by a fire in 1976, and how, 50 years later, the collection has been rebuilt from scratch and is stronger than ever.
• A hands-on workshop with artist/film maker Kevin Cameon showing how to bring ideas about fixing our broken planet to life using stop-frame animation. Working in small teams on iPads, participants will create short, animated films exploring fashion and sustainability. Using clothing, waste materials and simple props, participants will experiment with storytelling, animation techniques, editing and sound to produce their own creative pieces which will then be edited together and shown on social media.
• A talk and discussion by Newry and Mourne Museum curator Shân McAnena, about the embroiderers in the Irish linen industry, their impact on global fashion trends, and their exploitation, comparing them to women in clothing factories around the world.  

For more information on dates and times, please email declan.carroll@nmandd.org