Introduction: Textiles and Trauma

The idea for this special issue of articles on textiles and trauma came from an increasing awareness of the use of textiles to communicate feelings around significant events both in public and in private. A current example is the Covid-19 pandemic which has seen an increase in people taking up stitching in lockdown as a means of relaxation and distraction from world events.

It is interesting to explore the use of the word “trauma.” Once used solely as a term for physical wounds, the term trauma has now been incorporated into our everyday speech when referring to anything that has hurt us. Traumatic memories, relived hurts and wounds and remembered pain, psychological as well as physical all contribute to our physical and mental health. The varieties of “cruel and painful experiences that corrupt or destroy one’s sense of oneself have a common name ‘trauma’” (Young 1996, 89).

For an event to be described as a trauma, there are certain criteria that clinical psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun suggest should be fulfilled. Firstly, the term trauma indicates that the event comes as a shock such that the person has not had the time to prepare themselves psychologically for the event. The perceived lack of control over events is also more likely to make the person feel traumatized and change their psychological well-being, as does the event being “out of the ordinary” (Tedeschi and Calhoun 1995, 17).

There have been many occasions where a traumatic event has caused artists to create work that acknowledges the impact of the trauma on the immediate community or society. Langlands and Bell have commented that “creating work in response to living history is possibly the greatest challenge for an artist and one of undeniable responsibility” (Tate Britain 2004).

Textile artist and writer Nancy Gildart has documented work created as an act of mourning in response to deaths from terrorist attacks. She argues that the use of cloth as a material gesture responding to public trauma provides “a space for actual and metaphysical conversation and made those participating feel that they were part of a bigger whole” (Gildart 2007, 251). Those who make, wear or participate become part of a conversation and community by publicly sharing a private act of mourning. The textile artist’s response to such a psychic hole would be to patch, or sew up, embellish, hide or make beautiful and these efforts hold open the space for grieving by the meditative qualities of a focused repetitive action.

In contrast to the positive emotion generated by creating what Gildart describes as “textile actions,” the journalist Karal Ann Marling wrote that “fine art takes too long to serve a useful purpose in a crisis” (cited in Gildart 2007, 252). Yet textile-based actions which spontaneously occur following a personal or public loss are a response to people’s basic needs to deal with loss immediately, and start to grieve. “Loss must be marked and it cannot be represented” (Butler 2004, 467). This is about immediacy of expression rather than good design and as such acts as a channel for outrage, fear, doubt and sorrow. The results often lack esthetic appeal, but the need to do something means people reach for what is close to hand for materials that allow them to express solidarity and grief. As artist Jessica Stammen has written “bearing witness to this disaster … allows someone to claim this disaster as their own … so that the way is made for hope” (Stammen cited in Gildart 2007, 244).

The use of textiles in artworks in response to trauma has great significance. Our familiarity with cloth in everyday life means that we have a vocabulary not only of words but also of experience in the sensation of seeing, touching, handling and encountering it. We can draw upon this vocabulary to think about its involvement in containing and processing thoughts and emotions. So, when textiles are used to create artworks the viewer already has an element of understanding which allows for an immediate and intimate connection to be made with their emotions.

The authors of the papers in this special issue have researched and documented the materialization of trauma in textiles in a wide range of cultures, communities and situations. Their writing addresses challenging subjects: stillbirth, apartheid, the disappeared, domestic violence, forced feeding, and the conflict in Northern Ireland. But all show how the use of textiles enables some form of progress to be made, the recording and acknowledgement of events, a step taken on the road to reconciliation, repair and recovery, a positive change in the sense of well-being and, importantly, a holding open of a space for hope.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Beverly Ayling-Smith

Dr Beverly Ayling-Smith is an artist and researcher, her doctoral research examined how cloth can be used as a metaphor for loss and how it can connect with the emotions of the viewer. Beverly has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally; she has work in the Whitworth Art Gallery collection in the UK and in collections in the USA. She has presented her research at international conferences and has had her work published in the UK. [email protected]