Megha Chauhan

Relational Fieldnotes: Textiles as Wayfinders in the Himalayas

£1,000

Megha Chauhan’s essay explores how pattu, woollen textiles from Himachal Pradesh function as relational tools in ethnographic fieldwork in the Indian Himalayas. Traditionally worn by women across the region, particularly in the Kullu Valley, the pattu is handwoven using indigenous wool in two panels, stitched together at the centre.

The research was shaped by a desire to explore connections between textile weavers and knitters and their environments through the medium of wool textile craft practices, as this local material is closely tied to pastoralism, seasonal rhythms, and, more recently, fashion. This interest was also personal for Megha Chauhan. As an Indian researcher with family in the hills, she returned to Himachal with a sense of proximity and distance, familiar with the landscapes, yet unfamiliar with the daily rhythms.

Using the textile as a guide, this essay traces encounters, gestures, and exchanges that shaped the research process, offering new ways of learning, sensing, and knowing through material and embodied practices.

Freddie Robins

Softness is Power: A feminist discussion and subversion of softness

£1,000

Freddie Robins is well known as an artist and maker, a ‘radical knitter’, creating sculptures from yarn that question a range of issues around craft and art.

I use knitting to make non-functional objects. In other words, sculpture. I trained as a designer with a strong emphasis on the craft and skill of knitting but my current work sits pretty firmly within the sphere of contemporary art. My knitting practice questions conformity and notions of normality. I use knitting to explore pertinent contemporary issues of the domestic, gender and the human condition. My work subverts these preconceptions and disrupts the notion of the medium being passive and benign.
https://www.textileartist.org/freddie-robins-interview

Within this essay Freddie Robins explores and questions the art world’s acceptance of the ‘soft stuff’. Despite the resurgence of interest in textiles in recent years, and the more prevalent utilisation of textiles by ‘fine artists’ as well as ‘textile artists’ it seems that there is still a reluctance to accept and acknowledge the physical characteristics of textile work. This ‘debate’ is not new, it has been discussed in many forums, but more from the craft and textile perspectives than from the fine art perspective. Freddie Robins’ essay demonstrates that this investigation is valid and ongoing, providing an interesting and pertinent summary of ‘soft stuff’ and how it is viewed within the contemporary art world.