Silk Unravelled is a multidisciplinary event that explores exciting perspectives on the fascinating material that is silk: from insect to fibre, scientific innovation to theory, history to heritage, craftsmanship to industry, local to global production.
We hope to explore new avenues of thinking, to look into connections between this material’s rich history and vital present, considering it’s philosophical, scientific, cultural, and historical fields alongside one another.

Program

9:30AM
Opening, registration and coffee

10-11AM
Keynote
Helen Wang, ‘Silk as a Currency’
Curator of East Asian Money Coins and Banknotes of East Asia, British Museum

11-11:15AM Coffee break

11:15AM-1PM
Panel discussion Silk Fiction: Pushing Materiality Forward
Elizabeth Atkinson (Writer, Royal College of Art)
Derrida’s Silkworm
Lucy Tammam (Creative Director, Tammam)
Silk & Sustainability
Veronica Ranner (Designer and Lecturer, Royal College of Art)
Polyphonic futurs

1-2PM Lunch break

2-3PM
Keynote
Dr. Brenda King, ‘Taming the Wild: Thomas Wardle’s Pioneering Research into the Wild Silks of India’ Textile Historian, Chair of the Textile Society

3-3:15PM Coffee break

3:15-5PM
Panel discussion Silk: Global and Local Narratives
Dr. Mark Nesbitt (Curator and Researcher, Kew)
Silks from Economic Botany Collection
Magali An Berthon (Textile Historian and Documentarist, Royal College of Art)
Silk Production in Contemporary Cambodia
Marta Velasco (Textile Designer, Royal College of Art)
Pulau Banda Textile Collection
Lisa Gale (Visitor Experience Manager, Whitchurch Silk Mill)
Whitchurch Silk Mill: Preserving the Fabric

5-5:15PM Coffee break

5:15PM
Screening of the documentary film Silk River
Q&A with film director Steve Shaw

6PM Closing

Information:
Free entry – Booking required here:
silkunravelledgmail.com