We are thrilled to announce the 2023 TSA Research Travel Grant awardees. This award supports individual TSA members in textiles research-related travel—local, regional, and international of any type, specifically for the in-person study of textiles.
Please join us in congratulating the 2023 awardees, Ashley Kubley and Joelle Firzli. To learn more about these biennial awards, Ashley and Joelle’s projects, and recipients from previous years, please click here.
Joelle Firzli
Joelle Firzli is multicultural fashion researcher. Her main area of interest is the intersection between fashion and cultural sustainability, exploring how the business and theory of fashion can help maintain and promote cultural identity, preservation and legacy, as well as social and climate justice. Joelle is also a fashion entrepreneur and the co-founder of Tribute Collective, a responsible multidisciplinary organization focused on elevating visibility for global ethical fashion and design, and on community building through programming such as exhibits, workshops, and discussions about the global fashion industry.
“This proposal seeks support to offset the cost of traveling to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to research, study, and learn about the history and the techniques behind the making of mouchetée fabric. The TSA’s Research Travel Grant will provide me the opportunity to spend time in the studio and workshop of Pathé’O, one the most celebrated and prolific Ivorian designers whose work has been widely acknowledged for its contribution to the collective visual culture of African and global fashion. This support will further enable me to complete one of the chapters on Ivorian textiles and heritage, part of a bigger project on researching the history of textiles and fashion in Cote d’Ivoire. I hope it will serve as a handbook by which designers, students and scholars can better comprehend how Ivorians shape their sartorial and aesthetic identities and re-valorize their cultures through fashion.”
Ashley Kubley
Ashley Newsome Kubley has over 15 years of education and professional experience in the fashion design, apparel production, and textiles industries. She is passionate about the advancement of maker culture as well as the implementation of socially and environmentally sustainable practices in the apparel industry. Her research focuses on bridging the gap between historical techniques and contemporary technologies, pursuing projects at the intersection of history and new technological innovations specific to textiles.
“This grant will support my project, the Maya Youth Artisanship Initiative. The initial project work in 2019 included in-person artisan workshops, interviews and a physical exhibition that was installed in the Museo Artes Populares in Merida, Mexico between August 2021 and April 2022. A virtual exhibit of the work was also created. Between January 2024-August 2024 in Merida I plan to conduct artisan interviews, observations of henequen fiber processing, dyeing and weaving, and relocation of exhibition assets and artifacts created during the MYAI project to the U.S. for further exhibition; and archive/document Louise Vogel’s rare collection of Henequen fiber textile artifacts in partnership with the Museo Del Mundo Maya.”
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