STITCH aimed to transform our approach to vanishing textile cultural heritage and its craft into opportunities to educate and inspire future design. In the industrial world, textiles are cheap and mass produced, and as a consequence, traditional textile craft skill and knowledge are not always valued, and often forgotten. The market for such work thus becomes even more restricted, which results in the diminution of traditional textile craft and a loss of knowledge. With this diminution, an important piece of heritage is lost – not only the garments themselves but the methods of producing them and the intangible cultural manifestations of a community’s traditional dress. STITCH has created an open space for this important interplay between heritage, education and modern design via innovation within the process of safeguarding traditional dress and via an innovative learning programme for current fashion and textile students. Techniques that are typically not used in the classrooms were brought forward by STITCH making full use of available technologies. Teachers joined artesian educators and craftspeople through webinars to impart more practical courses. This enabled students’ access to knowledge, which is normally not part of the University training. A link between generations was created and a sense of understanding, appreciation and respect was formed. This enriched the official and regulated training of design studies, providing new perspectives, knowledge and new ways of doing and creating by favoring the conservation of artistic and cultural heritage, which is one of the fundamental objectives of higher artistic education. STITCH has proven possible to develop and deliver a hands-on course of design studies in an online manner serving as predecessor for other practical design studies. Specifically, STITCH focused on: • CATALOGUING INTANGIBLE HERITAGE: This includes the skills, the tools and the history of production and the events, traditions and social history associated with each heritage costume. The project emphasizes the need to preserve and share the living textile heritage of European communities when cataloguing traditional dress in museums or cultural centres. • DIGITAL INNOVATION: It used 3D scanning and film to improve the documentation of historical dress and facilitate the teaching of traditional textile and garment making techniques. • TEXTILE HERITAGE EDUCATION: There is a need to amplify the opportunities for inspiration and conditions for innovation resulting from traditional textiles and their craftsmanship. As education is the ‘strongest tool in preservation of heritage’ participating HEIs assumed a role within safeguarding and continuing textile heritage. As a result of these innovations STITCH drove the improved safeguarding of European textile heritage and its continued role in the modern world of textile design and production. Multiplier events, stakeholder engagement as well as seminars supported the correct dissemination of project results as well as knowledge transfer between participating organisations.
The main objectives of the project can be summarized as: - enabling access to centralized, practical, useful and shared information between both the cultural heritage and education practices on a platform featuring an online catalogue of textile cultural heritage. - develop a curricula for online textile heritage education for (aspiring) designers and integrate practical and theoretical cultural heritage education with craftspeople structurally in the higher education curricula. - develop new synergies between education and textile heritage practices through a long-term, integrated, and inclusive approach by developing a RE-Stitch competition to promote the creation of 'heritage-creativity interplay' concepts. - creation of good practice cases based on cultural heritage and the dissemination of their transferable and/or adaptable results amongst HEIs involved in teaching creative studies to raise appreciation amongst students. - Contribute to the safeguarding and promotion of valuable tangible and intangible textile heritage from smaller and more unknown regions in Europe through audiovisual content and 3D techniques.
STITCH aims to transform our approach to vanishing textile cultural heritage and its craft into opportunities to educate and inspire future design. It pursues an important interplay between heritage, education and modern design via innovation within the process of safeguarding traditional dress and its creation processes and cultural manifestations via an novel learning platform for current design students and young professionals. Safeguarding traditional dress in innovative ways and bringing closer to younger students would: - Enhance communication and synergy between the education and textile heritage sector. - Provide structural timing for cultural heritage education within the present design university systems. - Contribute to adequately disseminate good transferable examples from the past and present - Provide lasting tools linking education and cultural heritage that can continue to be enriched. - Deliver systematic training tools for cultural heritage education. - Joint financial support to ensure both training and cultural heritage education activities at a European level. - Provide opportunities to experience an important and more unknown part of Europe’s shared heritage.