Bronwyn Seier, MA Fashion Futures, LCF reports back from her AER residency at Joya: arte + ecología, Almeria, Spain
Joya is a small residency in the Northeastern part of Almeria, a southern Spanish province. Nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in one of Europe’s only desert regions, this residency is a remote sanctuary from the nearest towns and conventions of modernity. Being at Joya is like stepping back in time to be captured by the nature and freedom that exists off-grid.
I am a fashion designer and MA fashion futures student. My practice often looks at how clothing is made and tries to bring this narrative to the forefront. I design and create from the perspective that, if more people knew how their clothing was made, more value would be placed on every garment. Within that belief, I aim for a world where garments are more cherished, last longer, and bring a slowness to the pace of our digital and fast-fashion generation.
Incorporating the regional wonders of the residency into my proposal, I intended to spend my time at Joya investigating the long forgotten tradition of silk harvesting and weaving in Moorish Spain. I wanted to learn about the practice and communicate its ancient past through embroidery and handmade silk garments.
In researching this project prior to departing for the residency, I found few and far between resources that documented the silk industry there. Yet, I came into contact with so many astounding cultural gems of Spanish tradition in design and fashion. For some time, I became fascinated on a book about Spanish hand fans, documenting a tradition that saw the Asian artefacts travel to Europe and become functional art pieces in Spain; thanks to the hot summers and emergence of flamenco dancing. The information that I did find on the roots of Spanish silk came in the form of an English travel blogger, who’d documented a trip to a town just 2 hours from my residency: Pampaneira. Here, the travel blogger wrote, stood and old silk weaving mill that held relics to the traditional silk industry.
TRAVELLING FOR RESEARCH
In my first days at the residency, I made it my mission to visit this old silk town in the historic region of the Alpujarras. Two bus rides later through the winding highways of the mountains, and I arrived in a town that can only be described as ‘quaint Espania’. Nestled into the mountain, its white stone houses and sidewalk streams carried on for only a few blocks in each direction. The population here is around 300. When I did make my way to this old weaving mill, ‘Taller Textil’, I found that it was shut for Spanish siesta time. 2 hours later, and I finally got to go inside and take a look around.
To my surprise, the mill seemed less like a monument of the Moorish practices and more like a small town gift shop filled with handmade scarves. The silk threads were no longer used, aside from a small display of silkworm cocoons and some yarn cones. Instead, the shop was filled with mostly wool textiles, weaving images of the countryside into tapestries and wall hangings.
After leaving Pampaneira a little unsatisfied, I took the bus to Granada where I stayed the night. There, I visited the Alcaicerìa, a silk trading market built in the Nasrid period. Once again, I found this ancient site had undergone a turn to tourism, finding the market stalls filled with fridge magnets and sun hats instead of beautiful textiles. Taking in this shift, I could feel my project changing direction. Drowning in the souvenir paraphernalia, I was struck again at the walls of Abanicos (hand fans) adorning every shop. Not just because of their translation from artisan utility piece to tourist trap, but because I’d seen so many shiny-faced women resorting to this self-cooling device on the underground during London’s heat wave all summer. It felt like, both in Spain and scorching London, this fan could be a sort of self-help device for climate change.
The way I view environmentalism is with an appreciation for, but personal dismissal of technology as our saviour. Because while I’m fluent in the material innovations and fuel alternatives for the Anthropocene, I can’t help thinking it’s also going to require a collective shift in behaviour and consciousness.
I found myself thinking, as I sweat profusely on the Central Line all summer long, that these chic and feminine folds of nylon fibre and birch wood wouldn’t save us from the heat that is to come. Not that a self-operated hand fan is technically technology. But, it seems very on brand for my generation to embellish the symptom of this heat wave rather than change our behaviour to address the cause. In Spain’s only desert, it seemed like a good place to shift my brief and explore this irony. I purchased 3 fans, sold as new, but dirty enough that they were clearly secondhand. 9 euros later and I was back on my bus to Joya.
FANS + PROJECT
Back at the residency, I spent the next day researching hand fans and the messages I wanted to convey through them. This process was challenging and slow thanks to the sparsely available internet connection. Yet being offline changed my traditional method of design research. With a background in womenswear design, my concept > reading > image collection > mood board > sketching > prototype methodology is very regimented. Here, without libraries and Pinterest at my disposal, my process became more fluid. The downside here is that I felt I was designing on ‘hunches’ rather than facts. For example, I remember reading that cheap hand fans were printed with advertisements and given out at sporting events beginning around the 60s. BUT – I can’t remember where I read this and I didn’t have the search engine to back it up. So I went with it, fascinated by this transition from hand-painted artwork to canvas for capitalism. Maybe this is the difference between art and design: design expresses factual occurrences, and art is the essence of an ambiguous idea.
I began to form an idea about commenting on the way we as humans capitalise on nature through travel and resource exploitation. Drawing inspiration from the graphics and wording of vintage postcards, my idea could be titled “Greetings from the Anthropocene: a satirical look at the commodification of earth”.
I also wanted to comment on the scarcity of resources and the dwindling time with which we have to explore so many natural wonders. I once saw a documentary where Naomi Klien takes her son to the great barrier reef and tearfully acknowledges that it wont be around later in his life. Through this notion, I wanted to create abanicos that advertised tourism with a light-hearted criticism around the limited time with which we can still enjoy nature.
For the next 9 days at the residency, I embroidered. Hand embroidery is an incredibly time consuming skill, and I am not the fastest by any means. I’m typically bad at estimating my deadlines, and this residency was no exception. Aiming to create a series of 3 fans, that convey my messages when viewed together, I only managed to embroider about 1.3 of these at the residency. Still, this is a project I will continue to develop. Though, potentially only once I’ve finished my thesis.
Overall, my time at the residency was unlike any other creative endeavour I’ve experienced. I got to meet interesting and diverse artists and writers with fascinating view points. Because I study an environmental program within a fashion college, I get to meet creative people all the time who have different perspectives on fashion. Yet, it’s been a rare opportunity to meet creatives with so many interesting takes on the intersection between art and environmentalism. Even the fascinating operation of the residency’s water and energy systems were a constant reminder of human resource consumption, which is so often hidden from view. When I reflect on my time at Joya, it won’t remain as a trip or chapter worth looking back on. Instead, it should serve as a reminder to slow down and open my eyes in whatever city or digital environment I find myself in. To turn of my phone, make a meal from scratch, or actually consider for a moment where the water in the tap comes from – these are bits of creative practice that may not shape my resume but will leave me forever better off.
Learn more about our Art for the Environment Residency Programme