Neighbourhood Cloth
Seasonal textiles and food produced entirely on my Nunhead allotment
I am exploring how I can create a range of slow textiles and food that are grown, harvested, processed and dyed entirely from my garden allotment in Nunhead, South East London using more equitable, healthier and more regenerative design principles. I hope that my allotment and project will act as a catalyst to others by providing the practical knowledge and techniques required to produce textiles as well as demonstrate that even on a modest inner-city allotment, we can address the enormous challenges posed by extreme climate change.
In growing my own materials, I not only see opportunities to make and to wear but also opportunities to eat. To disregard and separate food from fibre is perhaps part of the problem; by eliminating this we can create diverse food systems, stop monoculture landscapes, create resilience for farmers and raise awareness that local organic clothes are as important as food.
Combining growing your own textiles with ‘slow design’ and ‘practices of care’ has created opportunities to slow down and connect to the process of growing: the waiting, the harvesting and the slow process of weaving, and creating in a fast world. ‘Growing my own’ has made visible not just how much nature offers us but the time it takes to grow these crops, the labour that is involved in processing them: the effort, the gruel, the emotional investment, the true cost of the things we take for granted.
Through the act of growing and the sharing of knowledge and skills, people are perhaps encouraged to think more deeply and re-evaluate what and how much they are consuming, as well as care for and nurture the land. Growing your own has the potential to give so many things: patience; an understanding of the work that goes into making something; the knowledge of how to make it; and a sense that items are to be treasured, and not discarded until they are ready to be returned to the land and the process begun all over again.
Hayley Caine
hayley@hayleycaine.com
hayleycaine.com