THREADS: Textiles & Tall Tales
Between January – March 2024, artist Holly Graham led a series of textile and oral-history-focused workshops with people sharing connections to the local areas surrounding 422 Community Hub. These sessions aimed to gather reflections on Manchester’s textile history, individuals’ personal relationships to cloth, and methods of print design, and to consider links between fabric, industry, empire, and local memory. The workshops included block-printing, patchwork stitching, oral history interviewing, and a visit to Platt Hall (previously named The Gallery of Costume).
Participants: Lynn Aulich, Nazia Bakht, Tony Clarke, Sally Dey, Anne Faulkner, Nate Frost, Rosie Gnatiuk, Jean Griffin, Evie Holzmann, Nicky Johnson, Rizwana Hassan, Meg Parnell, Natalya Riland, Samar Tasselli, Nadia Sultana.
Meg
Meg shares the story of a family heirloom, made by her mother for her as a baby, and used by herself in turn as a blanket for her own children: “So this is a baby blanket, and this is a photo of me under the baby blanket in 1974. And so she, when I had Samuel, my first child, she said here you go, this is, this is for baby.”
Natalya
Visual artist Natalya talks about the excitement of collecting fabrics to reuse and recycle: “I like the garishness of the pink and the lace and each one gives a different feeling to me, like I can feel the stories of the fabric.”
Nazia
Longsight-local Nazia discusses her love of her hometown, Manchester, and considers how where we live can influence what we choose to wear: “ Once a Mancunian, always a Mancunian. I just love the fact that everybody can understand me here.”
Tony
Longsight-local Tony tells us about his psychedelic T-shirt collection, and the joys and challenges it presents: “My wife died in August and we had an argument with the kids about which T-shirt I was going to wear. She wanted colours, but she didn't want those, those colours.”
Sally
422 Community Hub volunteer Sally discusses learning to sew as a child, her mother-in-law’s treasured textile creations, and how Manchester’s cotton history is embedded in the city’s architecture: “I don't know if you've noticed the metal edges to the pavements in the middle of Manchester. It was to stop the cotton carts damaging the pavements because if they hit the curbs they’d damage the pavement.”
Jean
Rusholme local Jean talks about her night school training in tailoring in her 20s and returning to sewing later in life: “When you've done sewing to that standard, you can't just throw things together. That's what I've discovered.”
Lynn
Lynn speaks about her family’s connections to the textile industry and her own relationship to cloth and making today: “All my grandparents were in the textile industry in Bolton. In the mills since they were 12, things like that.”
Evie
As an art student, Evie outlines her desire to engage in thinking through histories and relationships embedded within fabric: “I want to stay consistent with being present and involved in conversations about material.”
Nicky
Nicky discusses her love of sewing and William Morris designs: “Come my 18th birthday I said I don't want a party – I want a sewing machine!”
Nadia
Artist and new mum Nadia speaks about a collection of hijabs shared by herself and her sisters: “It's got a lace effect and it reminds me of my trip to Burano in Venice and the history of lace, and it just gives me a nice feeling to actually be part of the fabric that also four of my siblings have.”
Rizwana
Rizwana reflects on her father’s experience of working in the cotton industry, and speaks about items of clothing that hold a special place in her wardrobe and memory: “That just reminded me of that dress that I never got to wear.”
Nate
Middleton-based visual artist Nate speaks about his interest in self-expression and communication through print, pattern, and colour: “I'm really interested in how we express our identity through what we wear or what we fabric around us.”
Anne
Stockport-based Anne reflects on growing up surrounded by the sewing skills of the women in her family: “When I was at school and I did O-level sewing in those days I used to dread saying that I'd made anything because my aunt would whip the hem up straight away and check the finishing.”
Rosie
Platt Hall curator Rosie talks about how her earliest memories of cloth have shaped her ongoing interest in the tactile nature of material: “My grandmother was a maker and she got remarried and she made an amazing, really theatrical dress and I had a scrap of that material. It was like a raw silk actually, and I just used to carry it everywhere with me”
Samar
Samar introduces herself and talks about her desire to gain practical skills in stitching and textiles: “I just love touching and sort of looking at textiles and embroideries and I'm here to learn basically”