A Visual Exchange of Everyday History, a Creative Exploration to Build Contextual Awareness within Parallel Learning Communities

Abstract

This practitioner interview captures and analyses dialogue between two academic staff at different higher education institutions in the United Kingdom (UK), as a trial project to identify contemporary relationships with textile design history and contemporary culture. The project was established with the ambition to identify new strategies for student community learning in relation to contextual studies. The separate, but similar, lecture series the two academics present at their respective institutions aim to introduce design styles from 1900 to 2000, evolved from one programme devised when the two academics previously worked together. The project was developed through discussions concerning post-pandemic hybrid teaching and addressed concerns about the often-passive response to theoretical content and the challenge of developing a narrative that reflects the plurality of textile design histories as multiple cultural histories rather than one linear trajectory. By identifying topics arising in the lectures in their own everyday lives and locations, the two academics considered ways in which the students could be encouraged to make stronger connections for themselves with political and cultural discussions, to build greater critical skills and awareness. Inspired by Berger and Christie’s (1999), “I Send You This Cadmium Red: A Correspondence,” but with digital correspondence replacing letters in the post, the task was to seek out contemporary images that would narrate an element from each design history lecture, connecting heritage with the modern day. Building a shared digital image and narrative as the lecture series progressed, the exchanges inspired each academic to see the link to history from the correspondent’s viewpoint, while suggesting alternative ways of addressing the task in future weeks. The challenge proved to be invigorating and stimulating, establishing new pedagogy to integrating the past and present. The project and insights articulated through this article provide a model for shared academic practice that could be conducted over a longer timeframe or expanded to a larger collaborative group context. Both options provide collegiate support for individual curricular transformation and contribute towards enhancement surrounding decolonising the curriculum.