Researcher:
Kate Bowen-Viner
Kate is the academic researcher on the Co-stitch project. Kate is a Social Policy PhD student at the University of Bristol and brings to this project expertise in material methods. Kate joins the participating stitching groups to sew with participants and talk with them about craft and community. With participants consent, Kate will be collecting data in the form of recorded conversations, images and observational notes about the sessions. Kate is interested in how crafting practices and materials make a difference in communities.
Artist facilitators:
Naomi Clarke-Mordy:
Naomi Clarke-Mordy has been sewing and crafting for 26 years in a variety of contexts (schools, in the community, online groups and more). Naomi is always sewing (whether it is on the move or at home) and is really passionate about craft, communities and creativity.
You can see Naomi’s work through her craft-based Instagram @naomialicec
Dawn Giles:
The simple way that we can repair a hole with a needle and thread informs everything Dawn does with stitching. For her stitching and making with our hands is a powerful and radical way of caring for ourselves and others. It is a way to connect. Stitching connects us to other people, to places, to history and to materials.
Dawn currently works for the Charity Bridges for Communities managing and delivering hand-stitch workshops for the Stitching Together project, providing welcoming spaces where refugee women sew together.
Dawn is an artist, mender and social maker with over 30 years experience of managing arts organisations and creative programmes with a focus on connecting with people and communities.
Nilu Ahmed:
Nilu Ahmed is a psychologist and psychotherapist whose interests are in home and belonging and how these are not limited to physical places but created in spaces of togetherness. She integrates creative and community craft and knowledge approaches into her academic research and therapeutic practice and speaks about the positive benefits of craft on wellbeing. She runs stitch workshops drawing on ancient cultural stitching practices such as kantha and boro with groups of all ages. These techniques rooted in an ethos of reuse and repurpose are a valuable reminder change is always possible.
Behind the scenes:
Ceri Maltby, Co-stitch Producer. Ceri is working behind the scenes to help co-ordinate this project and advisory group to ensure it runs smoothly and learning is shared across the team.
Gail Lambourne, Brigstow Institute Manager, and Debbie Watson, Brigstow Institute Director, conceptualised this project and have a strategic overview of the research elements.
Julia Cassell, Senior Research Co-ordinator, Julia is providing administrative support for this project.
Advisory Group
This project is also supported by an advisory group of expert stitchers and academics with relevant research interests. The advisory group supports the direction of this research project and feeds in new ideas, directions and questions to help make the research better.