I think your blog overall is very diligent and precise in how you are producing your curatorial project. Africa Fashion is a great opening to the portfolio; your post delves into the materiality and identity of African textiles but there could be more imagery and information here that can situate this with the V&A museum. How does this historic museum change or impact how we respond to the content of the exhibition? The week one reading would also be appropriate within this blog post, how galleries/museums generate such exhibitions and how they are researched and curated.
Finding value in spaces that are not obvious for holding exhibitions is well considered in your week 7 blog post. You have expressed your own reasons clearly for exploring more challenging spaces and how this could benefit your curatorial project, but I think there’s lots of room for examples here. I think this would be a good place to research site-specific practices and how reactions to your own ideas around eco-fashion could shift in different ways depending on where it is placed. Also, again some images of the space you are speaking of would really benefit this blog post, as now it is up to the viewer of the portfolio to imagine or seek out what you mean. Towards the end of this post, you talk about obtaining materials having gone through ‘complex chemical processes’, I think there’s a lot of potential here to talk about these ‘processes’ and why you think they are important. As you describe these processes as being ‘complex’, perhaps some visuals could be introduced to make this information more accessible rather than assuming readers of your portfolio understand what this is.
There is a very clear layout to justifying the idea of eco-textiles and how you are approaching each decision regarding artists and space in your curatorial rationale post. You have explicitly defined your rationale here in a way that is both informative and intriguing, detailing changes in your original plan and how the project is moving forward. The reading at the end of this blog post feels slightly rushed and is a lot of research in one place, maybe this can be dispersed into other posts to make individual texts more relatable to your curatorial project. Its great how you have ended this with your project as a strategy that is both situated in and challenging existing ways eco-fashion, design and public art are displayed.
The week 8 blog post is super detailed in outlining the collective 1^25 and how each members tasks will come together to create a programme; you have carefully considered your own role and why this is important to the group and your individual project. This is the same for week 10, where you begin to lay down your concept as a concrete exhibition. I think it would be great to elaborate on the research you have undertaken at the end of this post; I like how you mention ‘environmental significance of textiles to visitors’, thinking about the impact your project may have and how curatorial decisions are an important way to address this to all visitors. Maybe some examples would be good here? A mix of similar exhibitions around eco-design and the effect they individually have had in the context of green technology?
All your finished blog posts have a high level of clarity, about your project and your role in the collective. Most of these including weeks 3 and 4 (gallery visits) could benefit from some visuals that could help explain your thoughts and ideas. Images of both of your artists’ works and other designers and exhibitions that have focused on eco-textiles would be great to help people navigate your ideas. Looking into exhibitions around eco-design would benefit your portfolio greatly and help to situate your project within the wider design field. I think this would also help with your mannequin dilemma, detailed in the week 11 post, as you may find a solution in other examples of design and fashion curation. Hussein Chalayan is worth looking into for his inventive use of fashion and technology, the Design Museum has lot of resources about this, the Fashion for Good Museum may be worth exploring, Ecoalf (more commercial), and Bethany Williams for stance on community and sustainability. Overall, the main thing is to add more imagery to each blog post, but I am looking forward to seeing your final project.
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