Textile Society of America 2024 Symposium - Shifts and Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles
Virtual on Zoom
12.11 – 17.11.2024
Source: https://textilesocietyofamerica.org/symposia/symposium-2024-shifts-and-strands
Theme & Mission
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” suggests transition, movement, evolution, mutability, instability, uncertainty, experimentation, and being in-progress or in-process. “Shifts” also reaffirms an ongoing process of transformation and change within the Textile Society of America. “Strands” is a textile metaphor that implies intertwining, connectedness, plurality, and multiple parts coming together to form a larger whole. “Strands” is a metaphor for collaboration, joining, and community. The Symposium theme is deliberately open, fluid, and inviting—it invites us to reflect upon the past and to envision and create collective, equitable, sustainable, and emancipatory futures.
Building on TSA’s 2022 and 2023 Colloquium series, the Symposium will create spaces to decenter dominant and sometimes-oppressive discourses and frameworks of knowledge; to celebrate the plurality of textiles and textile cultures; and share and uplift caring, equitable, decolonial, and sustainable practices and models grounded in anti-racism, equity, and accessibility. Concepts and keywords that have informed our thinking include: ruptures, repair, healing, care, sustainability, regeneration, rematriation, abolition, textile processes, being in-process, materialities, interstices, emergence, research, citation, knowledges, honoring, ancestors, teaching, mentorship, nurturing, sharing, futurity, collaboration, innovation, science and community building.
The 2024 Symposium will respond and contribute to developments in textiles while also reflecting TSA’s internal work. The Symposium is grounded in TSA’s ongoing anti-racism, equity, and accessibility work as its highest organizational priority.
Symposium & Experience
The Symposium will feature a broad range of sessions including the presentation of research, scholarship, and science, artist presentations, keynote lectures, panel discussions, roundtable conversations, “warp speed” and poster sessions, and mentorship and professional development sessions. It will also see the return of TSA member-focused events like the Awards Ceremony, Members’ Meeting, and virtual lunches and social gatherings.
Sessions will be scheduled across international time zones to reflect TSA’s reach as an international organization and better support participation by our global community. Global participation is a priority, and we also recognize that many in our community will be closely following the US elections in November 2024. Holding the Symposium after the US 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.
The Symposium will be held over five days, with sessions distributed over an additional day as compared to past Symposia. This will provide open blocks in the schedule and enable participants to watch session recordings, network, and socialize. One of TSA’s objectives for the 2024 Symposium is to expand access to all sessions and increase social interactions among participants. The Symposium will be held using the Whova digital event platform and app. Participants will be able to attend any scheduled session and easily move from one concurrently scheduled session to another. It will be easier than ever to navigate the program of events, create a personalized schedule of sessions to attend, and view session descriptions and speaker bios. Participants can join sessions on their mobile devices, tablets, and laptops. Sessions will be recorded, and registered participants will have access to recordings during the Symposium and for 90 days afterward. Whova has excellent social networking and discussion capabilities, with functions that encourage participants to find and connect with one another based on similar interests, chat one-on-one, and create discussion groups and forums.
More information: textilesocietyofamerica.org/symposia/symposium-2024-shifts-and-strands