Shifts and Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles
Announcing the 2024 Textile Society of America Symposium!
Read this announcement in accessible PDF format.
Date: mid-November 2024
Modality: Virtual on Zoom
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” suggest transition, movement, evolution, mutability, instability, uncertainty, experimentation, and being in-progress or in-process. “Shifts” also reaffirm an ongoing process of transformation and change within the Textile Society of America. “Strands” is a textile metaphor that implies intertwining, connectedness, plurality, or multiple parts coming together to form a larger whole. Strands are a metaphor for collaboration, coming together, joining, and community.
The 2024 Symposium will respond and contribute to developments in the field of textiles while also reflecting TSA’s internal work. The Symposium builds on and continues discussions from the 2022 and 2023 Colloquium series and will further TSA’s organizational priorities as established by leadership and the Board of Directors. Our work on the Symposium is guided by TSA’s ongoing anti-racism, equity, and accessibility work as its highest organizational priority, together with creating opportunities for members to connect with each other and share their research, art, scholarship, projects, and ideas.
Concepts and keywords that have informed our thinking and could develop into sub-themes and strands include: ruptures, repair, healing, care, sustainability, regeneration, rematriation, abolition, textile processes, being in-process, possibilities, emergence, interstices, research, citation, acknowledgement, knowledge, honoring, nurturing, teaching, mentorship, sharing, and community building.
The Symposium will feature a broad range of sessions including the presentation of research and scholarship, artist talks, keynote lectures, plenaries, panel discussions, informal conversations, poster sessions, mentorship and professional development events, virtual studio tours, and sessions proposed by TSA members. Sessions will be scheduled across international time zones, with recordings available for attendees who can’t attend in real time. Holding the Symposium after the 2024 U.S. 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.
Presentations will be published in 2025 in the Symposium Proceedings, with select papers published in a special edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Textile Design, Research and Practice.
Key dates:
February 1, 2024: Symposium dates, details and the call for participation announced
February and March, 2024: Online information and mentorship sessions for those interested in participating and submitting proposals
March 30, 2024: Deadline to submit to the call for participation
May 15, 2024: Notifications sent to all those who submitted to the call for participation
July 2024: preliminary program is published, early registration opens
September 30, 2024: presenters of academic papers submit accessible PDFs of their presentations (for accessibility purposes)
mid-November 2024: Symposium
2025: Symposium Proceedings published
For more information, please contact info@textilesocietyofamerica.com
We want to hear from you!
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