Monday 24/06/2024

CREAM is delighted to invite you to Catherine Dormor’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Textile Practices and Feminisms, taking place as part of the CREAM 2024 Summer Social on Thursday 4 July at Portland Hall. 

In this lecture, entitled ‘Cut! Stitch! Repair! – textile practice and feminisms’, Dormor takes three dominant textile actions – cutting, stitching and repairing –  to unpack and explore how cloth and stitch can function as feminist language for what it means to be in community. As she stitches across the surface, her threads move to and fro, up and down, following the movement of the needle as it makes its passage through the cloth. Scissors snip and slash cloth and thread, creating new shapes, disrupting existing forms; in their wake unwanted elements become separated and the raw edge is exposed. Thus comes into play the repair, with its notions of visible and invisible mending, covering up and moving on. In this lecture, Dormor will offer new readings of these ubiquitous acts and actions suggesting ways in which an ethics of violence might be achieved and new understandings of community can be realised. 

This inaugural lecture will be preceded by a talk by Dr Lucy Soutter on her AHRC-funded project, The Global Photographies Network.  

Programme 

4–4:50pm 

Lucy Soutter 
Around the World with 53 Contributors: The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies

5–6pm 

Professor Catherine Dormor Inaugural Lecture 
Cut! Stitch! Repair! – textile practice and feminisms 

6–7:30pm 

Drinks reception 

Location: Portland Hall, University of Westminster – Little Titchfield Street Campus 

Both lectures are free and open to the public. Find out more and reserve a spot here.