Materialising Data Feminism – How Textile Designers Are Using Materials to Explore Data Experience

Abstract

In our increasingly technology driven world, many human experiences are at risk of falling into the hands of Big Tech who trade, manipulate and design with our data. Catherine Ignacio and Lauren F Klein (2020) propose data feminism as a set of considerations to challenge power and injustices using data science practices. The work of textile designers can also support critical thinking by acknowledging alternative forms of knowledge, experience and activism. Textile designers collect, organise, analyse and present data in formats and contexts which engage and elevate people and stories from different communities. This paper explores the ways that textile designers experimenting with data experience embody the proposed suggestions to tackle issues and challenge systems of oppression. Textile design artefacts can inspire and provoke considerations for data ethics by enabling engagement with information which supports critical thinking. This paper demonstrates the principles of data feminism using examples of contemporary textile practitioners to illustrate how data representation is being designed to evoke emotional response, to communicate meaning and to consider alternative forms of knowledge production. Engaging material artefacts to explore ethical implications of data products is proposed as an application for textile design viewed through the lens of data feminism. This paper argues from the perspective of textile designers, for textile and material thinking be considered as valid methodologies to support dialogue used to challenge injustices and oppression perpetuated through data experience. This paper contributes to textile design research and practice which is expanding the traditional space for textile and material thinking to engage science and technology. Using textile practice to enable a connection and through intersectional feminist framing, a position is established for textile designers to challenge issues found in data science. This paper contributes to the interpretations of soft systems by introducing ways that designers are using materials to reconceptualise and question the status quo of engagement with the digital world. Engaging textile design practices can support critical thinking on data ethics; this paper contributes to research which strengthens the case and scope for textile design and explores relevant and timely issues facing society today.