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Symposium 2024 – Shifts and Strands

Key information:

Textile Society of America
2024 Symposium
Shifts and Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles
November 12-17, 2024
Virtual on Zoom

Important links:

Theme & Mission

The theme “Shifts and Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles” invites us to reflect on the many exciting shifts in textiles as historical and contemporary, cultural, creative, scholarly, political, discursive, and scientific practices. “Shifts” suggests transition, movement, evolution, mutability, instability, uncertainty, experimentation, and being in-progress or in-process. “Shifts” also reaffirms an ongoing process of transformation and change within the Textile Society of America. “Strands” is a textile metaphor that implies intertwining, connectedness, plurality, and multiple parts coming together to form a larger whole. “Strands” is a metaphor for collaboration, joining, and community. The Symposium theme is deliberately open, fluid, and inviting—it invites us to reflect upon the past and to envision and create collective, equitable, sustainable, and emancipatory futures. 

Building on TSA’s 2022 and 2023 Colloquium series, the Symposium will create spaces to decenter dominant and sometimes-oppressive discourses and frameworks of knowledge; to celebrate the plurality of textiles and textile cultures; and share and uplift caring, equitable, decolonial, and sustainable practices and models grounded in anti-racism, equity, and accessibility. Concepts and keywords that have informed our thinking include: ruptures, repair, healing, care, sustainability, regeneration, rematriation, abolition, textile processes, being in-process, materialities, interstices, emergence, research, citation, knowledges, honoring, ancestors, teaching, mentorship, nurturing, sharing, futurity, collaboration, innovation, science and community building. 

The 2024 Symposium will respond and contribute to developments in textiles while also reflecting TSA’s internal work. The Symposium is grounded in TSA’s ongoing anti-racism, equity, and accessibility work as its highest organizational priority. It is being shaped in line with TSA’s Mission: 

Building a foundation of anti-racism and a culture of care, the mission of the Textile Society of America is to foster an international collective community—diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible—for the exchange and dissemination of knowledges and experiences about textiles worldwide.

Importantly, the Symposium will highlight the work of our members, and create opportunities for TSA members to connect with each other and share their research, art, scholarship, projects, and ideas. 

About the 2024 Symposium Logo

The logo was conceived and designed by designer and illustrator Vitheavy Barton, who explains her inspirations and thinking behind the logo design: “Similar to the way a multitude of strands are woven together to create a larger textile, people from around the globe will be converging at the 2024 TSA symposium, Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles. This idea of connectedness and diversity, both in people and in textiles, was the main inspiration for the logo design. Themes about textiles—how they carry the past, are ever-changing, and show infinite potential—inspired the flowing curves in the logo. Multicolored, wavy lines come together as one, share with each other their past experience, and branch out into an endless future.” 

Sessions & Experience

The Symposium will feature a broad range of sessions including the presentation of research,  scholarship, and science, artist presentations, keynote lectures, panel discussions, roundtable conversations, “warp speed” and poster sessions, and mentorship and professional development sessions. It will also see the return of TSA member-focused events like the Awards Ceremony, Members’ Meeting, and virtual lunches and social gatherings. 

Sessions will be scheduled across international time zones to reflect TSA’s reach as an international organization and better support participation by our global community. Global participation is a priority, and we also recognize that many in our community will be closely following the US elections in November 2024. Holding the Symposium after the US elections will also allow TSA to add “up to the minute” sessions in response to the election and other geopolitical events, so that TSA can provide space for community and coming together.

The Symposium will be held over five days, with sessions distributed over an additional day as compared to past Symposia. This will provide open blocks in the schedule and enable participants to watch session recordings, network, and socialize. One of TSA’s objectives for the 2024 Symposium is to expand access to all sessions and increase social interactions among participants. The Symposium will be held using the Whova digital event platform and app. Participants will be able to attend any scheduled session and easily move from one concurrently scheduled session to another. It will be easier than ever to navigate the program of events, create a personalized schedule of sessions to attend, and view session descriptions and speaker bios. Participants can join sessions on their mobile devices, tablets, and laptops. Sessions will be recorded, and registered participants will have access to recordings during  the Symposium and for 90 days afterward. Whova has excellent social networking and discussion capabilities, with functions that encourage participants to find and connect with one another based on similar interests, chat one-on-one, and create discussion groups and forums. 

Papers and presentations will be published in 2025 in the open-access Symposium Proceedings, with select scholarly papers published in a special issue of the peer-reviewed  Journal of Textile Design, Research and Practice.

TSA Symposium Accessibility Statement

TSA’s Symposium Accessibility Statement was created in consultation with The Constellation Collective.

TSA is committed to ensuring our symposium is as accessible and inclusive as possible, in line with our commitment to anti-racism and building a culture of care. The symposium will be held on a third-party platform called Whova. Although we do not have control over the Whova platform itself, we are working to implement our content and sessions in the most accessible way possible.   

Specific steps we are taking for the symposium include: 

  • Providing live captions for TSA events like Keynote presentations, member meetings, and listening sessions
  • Providing presenters with training and guidelines for creating accessible presentations; requiring participants to consent to follow these accessibility guidelines
  • Creating alternative text for posters and other visual material created by TSA to promote the Symposium
  • Asking for accommodations as part of the registration form so we may address specific needs directly 

Ensure all PDFs of papers published in the Symposium Proceedings and presentations are as accessible as possible

Get involved! 

TSA is a volunteer organization and the Symposium relies on the participation of our global textile community. Join us in helping to shape the Symposium! 

There are multiple ways to participate and help support the Symposium:

Not sure how to get involved, or want more information?

Sign up to volunteer

Support 

TSA is primarily supported by our members. We recently introduced a sliding scale for membership fees to make joining TSA much more affordable and allow for more equitable and robust participation. TSA relies on donations to balance our finances. If you’re able to give at any amount, we would appreciate your support in bringing the symposium to our community!

Donate to Support the Symposium

We look forward to hearing from you!

Isaac Facio, President
Dr. Sharbreon Plummer, co-Vice President / President-Elect
Dr. L Vinebaum, Symposia Academic Chair and co-Vice President

on behalf of the TSA Board, staff, and the Symposium working group

https://textilesocietyofamerica.org/about-us/board-staff 
Please email any questions and inquiries to info@textilesocietyofamerica.org