The 12 - Claire Wellesley-Smith

Connected threads: Social engagement with textile places.

Geographies of former industry and arts-led research can offer new and powerful directions for community-based engagement. This session will explore Claire’s work in former industrial textile areas of northern England as a community-based artist-researcher. She will share projects that use creative engagement with textiles: dyeing and printing, rag recycling and repair in the former wool and cotton industries. These projects encourage new ways of thinking and talking about the geographies and heritage of post-industrial places and their communities.

Claire Wellesley-Smith is an artist, curator, writer and researcher based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Her projects are situated within arts, heritage, and creative health. The ability of textile to transform and connect over time informs her studio, community and research practices. Claire is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Geography and Environmental Studies department at the Open University where she also completed her PhD.

Everyone…