Dress for Sustainment across the Communities of the North Channel

This Phd will investigate potential for locally occurring biological fibre resources in communities of the Rhins of Galloway, Scotland, and the Ards peninsula N.I. The study will contribute to fields of sustainable material resources and social change theory via a practice-based approach encompassing drawing, filmmaking and textiles construction. A Solidarity Research model will inform methodological approaches to generating new knowledge at both sites.

Objectives will include creating exemplar-types of bodily coverings/portable shelters to provoke dialogue around local material resources as - historically ingrained and constructed identity narratives - played-out through the roles of resources, production processes and conceived notions of dress.

Research Context: A key context will be factories of the 1980's at both sites. Literature drawn from to scope out the research context will include: Arts Practice as Research - Graham Sullivan, Making Sense of Society: Power and Possibility Haiven and Khasnibish 2022, Ulster and Scotland, 1600 - 2000: History Language and Identity - Kelly, William. The Ulster Linen triangle - Marcel Boldorf (essay in: Regions, Industries, And Heritage.: Perspectives On Economy, Society, And Culture In Modern Western Europe (Palgrave Studies In The History Of Social Movements) Links between Northern Ireland and Southwest Scotland are ancient and fundamental to both regions and evidenced by such phenomena as Ulster Scots language.

The history between these sites has been contentious from medieval times and continues today. Controversies around the relationship between the two geographies serves to mask shared experiences of climate, language, culture, and knowledge, which are embedded in shared practices of local resources, and material production through the ages. While this has been explored through the historical perspectives of contention and conflict, less focus has been placed on the processes of manufacturing and products - including those of hand-made lacework and mass produced textiles arising at both sites.

This represents a gap in knowledge and insights vital to strategising systems for, and social relationships with natural material resources as the climate emergency deepens.

This research will take this contextual history as departure point - framing it within current times of socio-political, environmental and economic crisis - then follow a phased approach. In the 'scoping' phase I will connect with communities of the northeast coast of N.I within the Ards Peninsula - Donaghadee, Bangor or Newtownards - all previous sites of textile production, and the South West Coast of Scotland - Rhins of Galloway with a view to narrowing focus on two sites - one in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland.

This scoping phase will be followed by; the sharing of stories, reflection on and responses to local material resources with data being captured via semi-structured interviews, structured interviews and questionaries.

Research Methods: I propose an interpretative and dialogical methodology using a Solidarity Research model as a progression of Participative Action Research (Haiven and Khasnabish, 2012) to will collect and analyse the stories and experiences of long-time residents, producers and textile factory workers of the 1980's connected to the research locations. I will apply an interpretative phenomenological analysis to methods rooted in my established practice as a reflexive and reflective artist and researcher.

Methods will include videography, recording the spoken word, walking, handling, making and/or drawing processes involving biological materials of interest. These methods - will be central to designing a critical practice-based approach to both the processes of investigation as well as the generating and presenting of findings. Designed and delivered in settings that are social and unpressured, these methods will engage people and encourage immediate and open responses to questions