Threads That Connect Us: Day Trip To Helmond

In January, the team had the opportunity to share a very special day surrounded by fabrics and stories, and outside the office, visiting the Vlisco Factory Outlet and the headquarters of Jansen-Nannick B.V. in Helmond.

This outing, part of the Upcycled Clinic activities, not only allowed us to get to know each other better as a group at a time when our collaborative work is intensifying, but also to directly engage with the contexts and materials that permeate our projects. Through this journey, we forged connections between our individual research and the global stories that intertwine around the production, circulation, and meaning of textiles.

The day began in Vlisco, visiting and learning about the fabric production of one of the largest wax cloth manufacturers in the country. We continued our day at Jansen-Nannick B.V., where we gained a deeper understanding of the fabric production process: comprehending and visualizing all the steps involved in its creation.

During our journey, we learned in depth about wax cloth, a fabric deeply rooted in cultural expressions but with a transient history. Wax cloth seems to have become the connecting thread between all the individual works of our team: from its origins in batik in Indonesia, to the industry in the Netherlands, industrialized during the colonial era, to the tailors using this material in Ghana, including face masks during the pandemic.

These practices carry with them legacies and a global circulation of materials that are red threads through our projects and that give even more meaning to our work. Thanks to this day trip, we learned more about each other's stories in relation to this narrative, while we traveled together by train, bus, and on foot, and deepened the ways that our separate projects are woven together.