Crafting Resilience: Cultural Heritage and Community Engagement in Post-Industrial Textile Communities

这个奖学金的目的是开发和分享我的博士研究与学术，公众和从业者利益相关者的关键发现。打造韧性：后工业纺织社区的文化遗产和社区参与是基于布拉德福德，W.Yorks和Church，E.Lancs地区以前密集的工业纺织品生产地区，这些地区现在经历了世代失业和明显的健康不平等。紧缩政策和这一流行病的其他影响加剧了现有的不平等。该研究基于长期的社区创意遗产项目，探讨了如何通过缓慢的本地化工艺实践与文化遗产互动，以构建和表达集体身份并建立韧性。这些项目涉及纺织遗产的具体方面：印染、回收和修复实践。我是一名从事社会参与艺术项目开发和交付的实践多年的艺术家研究员。在一段时间内采用了多种方法，包括在纺织品制作和园艺车间的参与者观察，对个人和团体的半结构化访谈，摄影和反思日常缝合实践。艺术和遗产项目需要时间来打造韧性。我证明，在社区项目中的时间提供了信任，建立信心，技能发展和真正共同制作工作的机会。我将通过我的出版物和公众参与工作及其对实践、学术辩论和政策的意义来探究为什么会发生这种情况，以及这种情况是如何发生的。以艺术为主导的调查为社区遗产提供了新的和强有力的方向。艺术引导的调查是如何做到这一点的，为什么它很重要？通过与前工业的材料和围绕它们的创造性实践的接触，部分地探索了遗产的层次。这些为更广泛的对话和与遗产的联系提供了一种方式。我计划的工作与比利时大学和社区遗产组织建立新的对话，加上英国的公众参与工作将巩固这一工作。社区空间也是护理空间。在我的研究期间，我与之合作的社区组织为人们提供了聚集的场所，但也是人们可以建立弹性的地方。在这些环境中，以艺术为基础的参与如何发挥作用？社区空间的地理位置将通过一篇文章和会议论文进行研究，并开发一个新的资金应用程序来扩展这项工作。探索纺织遗产将后工业空间和地方感联系起来。这些超地方性项目为讨论和探索全球故事提供了机会。在这些情境中，参与者分享地方感的意义是什么？计划在研究金范围内举办的专题讨论会为项目参与者、专员和决策者提供了交流社会参与做法的经验和成果的机会。从事社会活动的艺术从业者在许多层面上都经历了不稳定。交付长期项目所需的资源往往参差不齐，影响到项目的可持续性和从业人员的复原力。这些见解如何对从业者和政策制定者产生影响？我将在《纺织：布料与文化》上发表一篇编辑邀请文章，通过我持续的创作方法来分享这些见解。该奖学金将通过撰写3篇期刊文章和2篇会议论文与学术界读者分享我的工作。我还将提供公众参与活动：面向更广泛受众的在线会议，与布拉德福德2025文化之城（作为2024年的跑道活动）一起举办的研讨会，为比利时的学者和遗产专业人士举办的讲座和研讨会。我将申请资金，以开发一个新的小型项目有关的纺织品，其制造和社区的反应。

The aim of this fellowship is to develop and share key findings from my doctoral research with academic, public and practitioner stakeholders. Crafting Resilience: Cultural Heritage and community engagement in post-industrial textile communities is based in areas for former intensive industrial textile production in Bradford, W.Yorks and Church, E.Lancs places that now experience generational unemployment and pronounced health inequalities. Additional impacts of austerity and the pandemic have exacerbated existing inequalities. The research, based in long term community based creative heritage projects explores how engagements with cultural heritage through slow, localised craft practices can construct and articulate collective identity and build resilience. The projects worked with specific aspects of textile heritage: printing and dyeing, and recycling and repair practices. I am a practitioner-researcher with many years of practice based in the development and delivery of socially engaged arts projects. Multiple methods were employed over a period of years including participant observation during textile making and gardening workshops, semi-structured interviews with individuals and groups, photography and a reflective daily stitching practice.My key findings are:1. Arts and heritage projects need time to craft resilience. I evidence that time in community-based projects offers opportunities for trust, confidence building, skill development and truly co-produced work. I will interrogate why and how this happens through my publications and public engagement work and its significance for practice, academic debate and policy.2. Arts-led inquiries offer new and powerful directions for community heritage. How does arts-led inquiry do this and why is it significant? Layers of heritage were explored partly through engagement with the materials of the former industry and creative practices around them. These offer a way in to wider conversations and connections to heritage. My planned work sets up new conversations with Belgian Universities and community heritage organisations plus public engagement work in the UK will consolidate this work.3. Community-based spaces are also spaces of care. The community organisations I worked with during myresearch provide places for people to come together but also are places where people can build resilience. In what way does arts-based engagement make a difference in these settings? The geographies of community spaces will be examined through an article and conference paper and the development of a new funding application to extend this work.4. Exploring textile heritage connects post-industrial spaces and senses of place. These hyperlocal projects developed opportunities to discuss and explore global stories. What is the significance of participants sharing senses of place in these contexts? The symposium planned within the fellowship offers project participants, commissioners and policy makers opportunities to share experiences and outcomes of socially engaged practice.5. Socially engaged arts practitioners experience precarity on many levels. The patchwork of resources often required to deliver long-term projects has an impact on their sustainability and the resilience of practitioners. How can these insights make a difference to practitioners and policy makers? An editor- invited article for Textile: Cloth and Culture will share these insights through my use of an ongoing creative method.This fellowship will share my work with academic audiences through writing 3 journal articles and 2 conference papers. I will also deliver public engagement activities: online sessions for a wider audience, a symposium delivered with Bradford 2025 City of Culture (as a runway event in 2024), a lecture and workshop for academics and heritage professionals in Belgium. I will apply for funding to develop a new small project related to textiles, their manufacture and community responses.