Fabpublic! Talking about Textile, Community and Public Space Takahashi Mizuki
From academics, scientists, designers, artists, craftivists, engineers, vendors, to end-users, t e x t i l e c u l t u r e c o n s i s t s o f m a n y d i ff e r e nt communities. Interestingly, however, these communities rarely seem to mingle and communicate about their interests even though they often have many common agendas, including: the extinction of traditional craftsmanship, the overflow of garment wastes, environmental pollution, labourer’s wages, and the balance of costs. Is this because they are too cloistered and focussed within their own spheres or, perhaps just an individual and/or collective indifference to the challenges of others? One of the reasons possibly because the fragmented and subdivided processes of textile production have rendered invisible an entire whole picture of a production process that consists of a myriad of highly specific commitments by many different professionals. One of the goals of the TECHSTYLE Series is to fuse the borders where art, design, craft, technology and business overlap by building a platform on which to gather the many different people who engage with textile, its techniques and technology through their practices in any form. From clothing to furnishing, textile and its techniques are ubiquitous in our everyday life. This very embracing nature makes textile per se, perhaps one of the most important commodities in human society. Giorgio Riello, historian and author of Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World, claims in his book that cotton has become the most common material
and global commodity because of not only the Industrial Revolution in England, but also due to multiple other factors, including: the expansion of cotton cultivation beyond Eurasia, mercantile competition between traders and markets in Europe, local adaptations of patterns and designs of cotton fabrics from India, etc (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Referencing this long historical journey that this humble material – cotton – has passed through, the TECHSTYLE Series intends to interweave knowledge and wisdom acquired from diverse experiences by various thinkers and practitioners on the subject of textile culture. Our organisational methodology for this discussion forum is intentionally looser than the usual academic or institutional symposium format; we expect and hope to see serendipitous and inspirational moments through this gathering of people who would not ordinarily encounter each other without this unique platform. To achieve this outcome, we have endeavoured to accumulate different case studies by various practitioners, in order to discern common threads amongst individual approaches and presentations. The term “Fabpublic” was created from the combination of the words “fabric”, “fabulous” and “public”. With 17 speakers and moderators from Hong Kong and overseas in this edition, t h e 2 d a y s o f d i s c u s s i o n s o ff e r e d m a n y distinctive insights and stimulated many debates, and generated many thoughtful questions from the various audiences. Unfortunately, due to publication limits, we have been unable to publish all of the many individual presentations in this book. Here, 7
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