Abstract
The Shirt Factory Project (2013) by Irish artist Rita Duffy and Silken Dreams (2012) by Japanese artist Ishiuchi will be scrutinised in order to consider the potential mnemonic role of the interplay between contemporary art and local heritage. The objective is to explore the potential of contemporary textile artistic interventions within local textile industrial heritage to act as a vehicle to highlight local women’s counter-memories of post-conflict trauma globally. Thus developing an unprecedented transnational connection between Duffy and Ishiuchi, to provide an interpretation of the role that contemporary textile art, in connection with built heritage, can have in subverting local and national heritage discourses on post-war trauma. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, which aims to collate the fields of global art histories, and those of heritage and memory studies. The global connections between Duffy’s and Ishiuchi’s locally situated artworks will be explored through the methodological lens of transnational feminism. This entails drawing a parallel between Duffy’s multimedia installations and Ishiuchi’s photographic series, through visual analysis and site analysis. Resulting in the unearthing of an unexplored ‘bridge’ between Duffy and Ishiuchi, and their approach to textiles and art as modes of representing their local communities’ post-conflict trauma globally. In conclusion, this interdisciplinary, transnational scrutiny of Duffy’s and Ishiuchi’s artworks could provide a framework to further investigate the ways in which contemporary visual representations of textile heritage can act as a tool to disrupt local and national heritage narratives by engaging with local gendered counter-memories in order to highlight them globally.
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Textiles, Collective Memory, Industrial Heritage, Interdisciplinarity, Transnational Feminism, Post-Conflict Trauma
