Event Details
Students from the Schools of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast during their 'hands on' arpillera workshop with Conflict Textiles curator, Roberta Bacic - second from right. (Photo: Fiona Clark) |
| Workshop: | Conflict Textiles arpillera workshop with Level 2 Spanish students, Schools of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast |
| Description: | Within Spanish and Portuguese Studies, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast, students can take an optional module titled "Protecting Paradise". This module investigates different modes through the arts, broadly titled, and how they can engage with significant issues in society and particularly those relating to environmental issues. Examples of Latin American film, textiles, and fiction are considered as part of this exploration and the emphasis is on praxis and ‘hands-on’ engagement!
Within this module, Conflict Textiles curator Roberta Bacic facilitated a workshop and introduced students to the arpillera tradition, the Conflict Textiles collection and the ARK / Conflict Textiles exhibition in the McClay Library, QUB.
The first half of the class focused on giving the students the opportunity to share time with Roberta, to hear her personal story, to learn more about Latin American cultures and the story of the many and different ways in which the arpilleras have now impacted people across the world. This included a display and discussion of a number of the arpilleras that linked to the theme of environment that is core to the module.
The second half of the class consisted of a workshop where the students learnt how to make an arpillera figurine using materials that they had brought from their homes. (See Workshop overview and reflection)
This initiative, supported by the Education Fund, builds on earlier collaboration with Dr. Fiona Clark. Two textiles created by her students as part of previous course assessments on literature and the environment have been exhibited in several Conflict Textiles curated exhibitions, Return to home and harmony and No to Corporativism.
Clark, F. (2022). Literary Arpilleras: Textiles as Place-Based, Creative Pedagogy Modern Languages Open, 0(1), 11.DOI: |
| Commissioned by: | Schools of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast |
| Date(s): | 1st November 2023 - 1st November 2023 |
| Venue: | Queen's University Belfast
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| Curator: | Roberta Bacic |
| Facilitator: | Dr. Fiona Clark |
| Outcome: | This workshop, supported by the School of Arts, English and Languages Education Fund, enabled the students of Spanish at Queen's to gain first-hand experience of working with textiles that then fed into their assessment preparation for the module.
It allowed what might otherwise have remained textbook knowledge, to become part of the lived experience and to provide opportunity for further discussion of the theme of textiles as a form of gentle protest and to preserve memories. |
| Documents: |
• Workshop: overview and reflection - view
• Clark, F. (2022). Literary Arpilleras - view
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