Diaspora by Design: Migration, Mills and Interiors
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Department Name: Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies
Abstract
By the end of the nineteenth century, textile mills were ubiquitous in industrial regions throughout the Global North. While the wider cultural, economic and political implications of these mills have led directly to the establishment of the history of design as a discipline, to date there has been little to no attention paid to their diasporic communities, and how migrant experiences shaped practices of modern interior design. By focusing on the regional working-class cities of Bradford, Paterson and Bad Vöslau, this project, led by Dr Sabrina Rahman (University of Exeter), will uncover the relationship between vernacular and global interior design. Situated within the fields of design history, social history and diaspora studies, the research and its associated development and engagement activities deploy an intersectional approach in order to consider how new approaches to vernacular design developed through processes of migration and acculturation.
The project draws on the fellow's experiences of community-engaged, movement-based embodied research in a range of academic and curatorial contexts, based on accessible, creative movement practices in a supportive environment. It will allow her to develop her profile as a leader in facilitating new methodologies that bring together academic and wider public communities. This will be the focus of a series of on-site meetings in West Yorkshire, Northern New Jersey and Lower Austria, as well as the delivery of three site-specific workshops that will feature accessible activities centred around a multisensory experience of everyday life in the diaspora. These will be co-delivered by the fellow and three movement-based practitioners with intimate local knowledge of the diasporic cultures and histories that emerged from the context of working in textile mills.
What connects South Asian diaspora communities in West Yorkshire to the Italian and Jewish diasporas of Northern New Jersey, and the Eastern European and Balkan communities of Lower Austria? How do the historical working environments in industrial textile mills relate to the design of everyday life in these multiple diasporas, ranging from homes to local cultural centres, restaurants and shops? How can practices of community engagement today empower members of these diasporas to craft meaningful histories that do not exist within design archives and institutionalised narratives of migrant and economic history, but rather privilege lived experience and alternative ways of knowing, doing and being?
The fellowship seeks to nuance recent developments in the decolonisation of research in design across the disciplines-whether it be the study of social design in addressing minoritised histories and perspectives, or the application of design thinking as a path towards more equitable collaboration across communities. The risk with these more widespread interests in decolonial design processes is that the narratives continue to be shaped and thereby colonised by dominant voices. "Diaspora by Design: Migration, Mills and Interiors" thereby seeks to offer alternative practices and narratives in addressing fundamental issues in the field of design history. It does so by focusing on an engagement with participants belonging to distinctive diasporas, who have been working through their own practices of interior design in relation to the legacy of labour in industrial textile mills, in order to express collective approaches to lived experience that have not yet been formally documented. This project will offer a platform for these stories to be told in an empowered manner, through oral, textual and visual means, whilst forming the basis of an embodied methodology for the benefit of an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers.
The project draws on the fellow's experiences of community-engaged, movement-based embodied research in a range of academic and curatorial contexts, based on accessible, creative movement practices in a supportive environment. It will allow her to develop her profile as a leader in facilitating new methodologies that bring together academic and wider public communities. This will be the focus of a series of on-site meetings in West Yorkshire, Northern New Jersey and Lower Austria, as well as the delivery of three site-specific workshops that will feature accessible activities centred around a multisensory experience of everyday life in the diaspora. These will be co-delivered by the fellow and three movement-based practitioners with intimate local knowledge of the diasporic cultures and histories that emerged from the context of working in textile mills.
What connects South Asian diaspora communities in West Yorkshire to the Italian and Jewish diasporas of Northern New Jersey, and the Eastern European and Balkan communities of Lower Austria? How do the historical working environments in industrial textile mills relate to the design of everyday life in these multiple diasporas, ranging from homes to local cultural centres, restaurants and shops? How can practices of community engagement today empower members of these diasporas to craft meaningful histories that do not exist within design archives and institutionalised narratives of migrant and economic history, but rather privilege lived experience and alternative ways of knowing, doing and being?
The fellowship seeks to nuance recent developments in the decolonisation of research in design across the disciplines-whether it be the study of social design in addressing minoritised histories and perspectives, or the application of design thinking as a path towards more equitable collaboration across communities. The risk with these more widespread interests in decolonial design processes is that the narratives continue to be shaped and thereby colonised by dominant voices. "Diaspora by Design: Migration, Mills and Interiors" thereby seeks to offer alternative practices and narratives in addressing fundamental issues in the field of design history. It does so by focusing on an engagement with participants belonging to distinctive diasporas, who have been working through their own practices of interior design in relation to the legacy of labour in industrial textile mills, in order to express collective approaches to lived experience that have not yet been formally documented. This project will offer a platform for these stories to be told in an empowered manner, through oral, textual and visual means, whilst forming the basis of an embodied methodology for the benefit of an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers.
