My research develops a framework of ‘Caring Cloth’ - A care-led and socially engaged textiles practice, developed within MA and PhD research at the Royal College of Art (MA), the UAL Doctoral School, the University of Bergen (Artistic Research Fellow), and the University of Gothenburg (Guest PhD Theory Participant). This research was awarded a distinction at the Royal College of Art, was the selected Textiles candidate for the Critical and Historical Studies Symposium at RCA in 2021, and was awarded a new professional award by the Textiles Society of America in 2024 for presentation at their international symposoium ‘Shifts and Strands’. Please find further information about the development of my research below.
Research Publications:
2026 (Upcoming): In collaboration with Sabine Lettman, and Dr. Victoria Geaney
2025: James, Suzanna. ‘Caring Cloth Praxis: Ethics of Loss, Practices of Remembering’.
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, Jan. 2025. COinS.
2025: James, Suzanna. Concurrent Session Abstract ‘Community, Collaboration, Care’ ,‘Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles’, Textiles Society of America Symposium Nov 2024.
2021 RCA Publication and Critical and Historical Studies presentation:
James, Suzanna.
‘Caring Cloth: ‘The Needle Is Used to Repair Damage, Its Claim to Forgiveness’
How Can Socially Engaged Textiles Practice Be Developed with Women Globally through Care? 2021. Royal College of Art.
Doctoral Research:
2025 (Ongoing): HDK, University of Gothenburg - ‘Theory for Doctoral Artistic Research’ (Guest Participant)
2024 - (Ongoing): University of the Arts London: Doctoral School
-Critical and Creative Methodologies - Doctoral School Programme
-‘Becoming a Researcher’ - Doctoral School Programme2024: KMD, University of Bergen, Norway, Fakultet for Kunst, musikk og design - Artistic Research Fellow (PhD Stipendiat)
Doctoral Activity includes:
2025: Cartographies of Remembering, Serpentine, London (Attendee)
2025: Publication of individual paper and symposium abstract by the Textiles Society of America, University of Nebraska
2025: Ways of Remembering: Hong Kong Archives, Symposium, London (Attendee)
2024: New Professional Award for Symposium Presentation at the 2024 Textiles Society of America Symposium
2025: ‘Tremoring the Archive’, Workshop, facilitated by Joshua Leon, Bow Arts (Attendee)
2024: International symposium on Participatory Research in Migration, Community, and Aesthetics: ‘Exploring Aesthetic Methodologies’, delivered by Dr Azehdah Fatehrad, University of Worcester (Attendee)
2024: ‘Purple Hibiscus’ with Ibrahim Mahama - Practice Workshop - Barbican Library (Attendee)
2024: ‘Fashioning Stories of Change’, Refugee Week, Participants Exhibition, V+A, facilitated by my supervisors Dr Francesco Mazzarella and Professor Lucy Orta (Attendee)
2024: ‘Shifting Narratives - Reciprocal Making and Learning through Textiles’ - Symposium, Barbican Library, facilitated by Dr Francesco Mazzarella (Attendee)
2024: ‘TEXT/TEXTILE’, Research and Practice Symposium on the symbiosis of textiles making and writing, at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin: Dr. Éireann Lorsung, with Anne Boyer (Funded by UAL Research)
MA RCA Research Abstract:
In a global community of predominantly women makers*, the voice of cloth and its makers speaks to a swathe of peripheral worlds that surround the ‘terminal inequality’*, caused by the oppressive structures that drive mass production and consumerism. Cloth is a spokesperson within this global making. This research listens to the stories of how cloth can both harm and heal and considers the ways in which it could care. Could care become a louder story of cloth? My own textiles practice, feminist care ethics and transnational feminist praxis provides a context to consider care-led textiles making, interconnected across border lines, in the endeavour of collective wellbeing* for the global community of women makers. In this research I make a case for intercultural, care-led socially engaged praxis based on this context. Secondly, this research considers the pros and cons of a framework for this praxis, working towards considering it’s possible ingredients, and finally, crafting a working denition of ‘caring cloth’ praxis. This is in response to the question: how might we develop socially engaged textiles practice with women globally through care? Caring cloth praxis offers a response through its ingredients inclusive of radical compassion*, openness to the unknown*, feminist methodologies, time, story, and community. The research proposes women’s making circles as a tool of social care.
The dissertation that gathered this circle of women’s words and works, entitled ‘Caring Cloth’, received a distinction at the Royal College of Art and was the selected Textiles research at the RCA Dissertation Symposium 2021.
Development of this research for my PhD was presented at the Textile Society of America’s 2024 Symposium ‘Shifts and Strands’ speaking on the research question:
‘Caring Cloth: Ethics of Loss, Practices of Remembering -
In the context of the arts and social justice, how do personal ‘practices of remembering’: handmade textiles, poetry and storytelling, and ephemeral keeping, contribute to an ethics of loss that promotes individual, collective, and intercultural care?’
A reflection on my award place at the TSA Symposium will be published in the TSA newsletter in November 2025.
*Research references available here