Threads and Yarns: Intergenerational Engagement and Cross-Disciplinary Research through Textiles

This article discusses Threads and Yarns, a three-phase intergenerational textile project exploring personal accounts of health and well-being as part of the Wellcome Trust’s 75th anniversary program. While project participants engaged in creative making workshops, they talked about their own biomedical histories. These personal accounts were then examined by researchers of science, history of medicine and medical humanities, as well as textile design students. Each researcher developed responses that were presented at a public engagement event held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in July 2011. The students used their experience to inform their research exploring textile trends within a social context, and their resultant films were also featured at the event. The article demonstrates how communal crafting can be used as a cross-disciplinary research tool to facilitate valuable insights into the past and future of health and well-being, and to inform socio-responsive textile design research practice.

• http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/journal/tex...