Donna Claypool

This positioning paper focusses on the use of industrial and textile archive collections, examining designs, objects and related ephemera for teaching purposes, enabling students to engage with objects as part of visual and contextual investigative enquiry. This forms part of an ongoing PhD by Practice by the author, which focuses on teaching and learning, accessing the archive at the Museum of Bolton for pedagogical and creative practice. Funded by a University of Bolton, “Jenkinson Award”, this paper outlines a project with undergraduate students on the BA (Hons) Textile and Surface Design course at the University of Bolton, which forms part of the wider doctoral project. Students developed artworks responding to the broader history of textiles during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries within Bolton and surrounding areas, including textile machinery, manufacturers, mills, pattern books, textile quilts and bolt stamps which relate to global trade. An exhibition of these outcomes, was held at Bolton Museum and Art Gallery in January 2019, with part of the works going on to form a handling archive. It is hoped that some of the artworks and samples will be deposited back into the archive, alongside community education-based collaborative workshops with the museum, for future generations to learn from. From an educator perspective, discussion surrounds the students’ learning processes, models for teaching using the archive, visual enquiry, concept, project engagement, community, heritage and a sense of belonging.