Material Engagement with Everyday Textiles

What can the history of everyday textiles–the things we wear, wash our dishes with, the sofas we sit on–teach us about a climate-just use of fibers for the future? Sourcing, dyeing, spinning, and weaving natural and synthetic fibers is one of the oldest industries in the Netherlands. In every period and on every scale, the production of textiles had a major socio-ecological impact, both visible and invisible; from Tilburg’s cloth manufacturers depending on the nearby Kempen heath sheep; and garancine (red dye from madder) factories polluting the rivers in 19th century Zeeland; to relying on low-income home weaver’s and cheap factory workers. With sites of production now largely moved to other parts of the world, the consumption of textiles in the EU is one of the leading pressures on water and land use, on raw materials and on greenhouse emissions worldwide (EEA textiles report 2024). The need for just fibers at local and global scales is pressing. Possible solutions put forward by the European Environment Agency echo pre-industrial textile practices, such as moving towards local circular economies through prolonged use of more durable textiles (“slow fashion”), and manufacturing on small and local scales, structurally including reuse, repair, and recycle. But while things happened on smaller scales in the past, they were not always just either. Through the lens of climate justice, the PhD candidate in Sub-Project 1 will combine research into textile heritage and historical making practices of Everyday Textiles–e.g., historical dyeing recipes, textile tools (e.g., spinning wheel, loom, industrial machinery), mending practices, fiber sources, and practices of recycling and reuse. With the TextielMuseum|TextielLab, housed in an old wool factory in Tilburg and renowned for activating its rich textile heritage into contemporary art projects, Sub-Project 1 will (re-)imagine futures for making fibers ‘just’. We will collaborate with local makers communities through Fibershed Netherlands - a global-local network linking textile companies with contemporary art and design practices to develop regional fiber systems that build soil and protect the health of our biosphere.