Research

This section of the website focuses primarily on True’s doctoral research at Perry Street Mill which was the culmination of exploratory and participatory research produced in the preceding years. Both Mapping with Threads (2003) and Threads (2005) embody elements of history, geography, social science and interaction with people to illuminate a narrative about a place.

The interdisciplinary research that True did at Perry Street Mill draws on her own understanding of art practice and continued to develop her interest in using oral history as a tool to inform the creation of artworks. She previously established this method of working during her MA at Camberwell Art College (2003), where artworks were created in the space between the two disciplines.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the University of the Arts London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017.

Located Narrative - An interdisciplinary ‘located narrative process’ that explores and develops a tool to inform my site-specific contemporary art practice.

Supervised by: Professor Malcolm Quinn (Director of Studies), Professor Paul Coldwell and Professor Jennifer Harding.

Abstract

The bobbinet tulle industry has been associated with Chard for two hundred years and Perry Street Mill is the last working mill of its kind. Through an exploration of the bobbinet tulle industry a narrative has unfolded revealing an intricately woven fabric about the particular place.

Perry Street Mill and surrounding countryside and Perry Street Mill clock

Millpond and millrace at Perry Street Mill

In 1808 John Heathcoat (1783-1861) constructed a machine capable of copying the intricate movements of manual ‘pillow’ lace makers and gave the name ‘bobbinet’ to the lace produced by his ‘roller-locker’ machine. Heathcoat’s first factory was located in Loughborough in the Midlands, but he later moved his operation to Tiverton, Devon. A number of mills were built in Chard, Holyrood Mill and Boden Mill being two that are still standing today.

Holyrood Mill plaque

Boden Mill nameplate

Glifford Fox & Co nameplate in Chard Museum

Holyrood Mill building

Bobbins and bobbin cases

In 1984 Swisstulle plc bought Perry Street Mill that is situated three miles south of Chard. At Perry Street they have over fifty machines that are almost identical to the ones Heathcoat invented in 1808. Swisstulle produce a wide range of bobbinet tulle that has a variety of applications throughout the world.

Perry Street Mill interior details

According to Swisstulle: Genuine bobbinet tulle is constructed by warp and weft yarns in which the weft yarn is looped diagonally around the vertical warp yarn to form a hexagonal mesh, which is regular and clearly defined. The bobbinet serves as material for haute couture, high-quality designer fashion wear, film and theatre stage design, embroidery, military parachutes, medical applications, fishing nets, wig bases and electromagnetic shielding.

Bobbinet

The ‘located narrative process’ is an interdisciplinary tool, which draws on approaches from a range of different disciplines that have enabled me to make use of an array of new understandings. Traditional methods of research have been used to underpin experiential understandings of a particular place. Through embracing methods from social science and employing them as part of a creative process and using theories from oral history and geography, I have expanded my practice of making artwork. The ‘located narrative process’ uses subjective memories and incorporates embodied and experiential approaches. Experience has been the basis for memory throughout this research.

Using oral history as a primary component of the creative process allowed me to access the participants’ interpretations of place through their subjective memories, which exceeded my own understanding of it. The accounts also conveyed factual and descriptive information about the process of production, the machines and the locale. The expressions, descriptions and experiences conveyed by the participants through their ‘episodic’ memory played a significant role in the construction of new knowledge on which I based my interpretation and representations. The artwork embodies new insights about the particular place by focusing on the experiences of the employees and members of the community.

The participants constructed a sense of self in the interviews in relation to their social and cultural environment. The subjectivity of memory provides understandings and insights about the meanings of historical experience, together with connections between the past and the present, between memory and personal identity and between memory, group identities and collective memory. It has been my aim to create a narrative about the particular place and to have some sort of an understanding through my interpretation about the ‘representativeness’ of it. It is the subjective insights conveyed in the individual accounts that have made it possible to make decisions concerning the ‘representativeness’ of the community and particular place. A cross-section of the subjectivity of a group emerged through the telling of their individual narratives. For example, stories about mending featured in every interview and emerged as a key aspect of the participants' lived experience to make artwork about. A narrative that communicates the collective memory of mending is embodied in the artwork.

Themes and concepts were revealed through my subjective interpretation and understanding of the meanings conveyed by the participants. It has been my intention to interpret and re-present the themes and concepts in an attempt to give meaning to what was conveyed. However, I am aware that any observations I have made are interpretations and re-presentations of coproduced interpretations. The participants and myself are contained within the ‘located narrative process’ from which the artwork is generated, the located narrative ‘contains’ the subjects and objects of artist, workers and artwork.

The concepts that I have created encompass the meanings the participants attribute to their experiences in relation to the particular place. The themes and concepts, together with the participants’ individual stories have been used as a point of departure to create artwork.

For me, the process of making unfolds in ways that I could never predict, nor anticipate, nor could I envisage an outcome. Therefore, the narrative process of creating concepts in this research and responding to them is fluid and never fixed. The process involves reflection, material experimentation, sometimes to no avail and further reflection to discover a way forward.

The circular motif inspired the creation of the tutu, which became a form of material reification. Further development of this piece resulted in Mending the Tutu, where a fragmented narrative was inscribed onto the skirt of the tutu by the participants. The construction of the tutu was followed by the development of the Teleidoscopes through a physical exploration of the place, whereby I used sections from an old map that I discovered at Perry Street Mill, to create a series of hexagonal and octagonal collages. The collages encompassed the material visual form of different places at Chard and thus, the locale – the material setting for social relations. Each coherent part of the structure had been chosen using knowledge from the subjective memories of the participants that expressed emotional connections and attachment to each particular place, therefore ‘sense of place’ was imbued in every construction. The hexagonal and octagonal symmetrical patterns mirrored the geometric construction of the tulle, the circular motion of the machines, their circular components and the circular repetitive process of production. The Teleidoscopes became a point of departure for the creation of the Teleidoscope Rubbings and the Teleidoscope Drawings. Somerset Waters was a physical exploration of the place in response to the concept of the screen. The photographs of the millpond at Perry Street Mill succeeded in creating a space for remembering forgotten pasts.

The artwork exists as a form of material evidence of the relationship that was made with participants in their social setting and cultural environment. The subjective memories have been turned into embodied artwork in the creative process that took place in the reflexive and reflective space in-between the generation of knowledge and the finished objects. The artwork is a retelling of the participants narratives. Meaning has been created in the retelling. A creative method of meaning-making and negotiation have produced new insights.

Thank you to Zubaida Choudhury for inviting me to meet her at Perry Street Mill, in response to my letter to discuss the possibility of conducting research there. It was her initial enthusiasm that led to the Mill becoming the site of enquiry for this research. My special thanks and appreciation to Trevor Larcombe for his generosity and enthusiasm for my project, and for being so accommodating. Thank you also to Swisstulle UK plc who gave me generous access to Perry Street Mill. I would also like to express my special gratitude and thanks to all the participants: Godfrey ‘Nobby’ Clark, Adrian Cross, Mary and Roy Hayward, Sheila Knight, Hilda Larcombe, Susan Larcombe, Mandy Meares, Glenn Moore, Kathy Moulding, Gladys Prince and Mary Ward for allowing me to interview them and giving me such attention and time.

Swathes of bobbinet