The papers in this volume consider the existence and preservation of modern materials in the textile field. This publication presents modern textiles as a subject in its own right and the content is intentionally multidisciplinary to demonstrate the wide spectrum of subjects involved in their preservation. Papers are authored by artists, curators, anthropologists, conservation scientists and conservators while topics cover the creation, collecting, interpretation, detrioration, analysis and conservation of synthetic materials associated with textiles.
Modern materials, whether as art or everyday objects, are the basis of the contemporary material world. Accordingly objects encountered within museums and collections increasingly represent a broad spectrum of materials whose preservation may be without precedent. Topics range from familiar textile types, such as costume, to more unusual applications in suitcases, wall hangings, furniture and theatre scenery. Some papers prompt the reader to reconsider what makes a textile modern.
These postprints are the second in a series of three volumes of papers emanating from the conferences of the AHRC Research Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies, Textile Conservation Centre, University of Southampton. The themes for the preceding and succeeding volumes are:
-Scientific analysis of ancient and historic textiles: informing preservation, display and interpretation (Archetype 2005)
-Textiles and text: re-establishing the links between archival and object-based research (Archetype 2007)
Foreword
Cordelia Rogerson and Paul Garside
Creating and interpreting objects
Scentsory Design: the emotional living tissue
Jenny Tillotson
Can an artist create permanence from transience? The Schmuck Quickies of Yuka Oyama become durable
Cordelia Rogerson and James Beighton
Interpreting the woven devore textile
Andie Robertson
What makes a textile modern? The recycling of clothing in the Punjabi shoddy trade
Lucy Norris
Collecting modern textile materials
In pursuit of forgotten fibres? The development, disappearance and rediscovery of regenerated protein fibres
Mary M. Brooks
'A bomb in the collection': researching and exhibiting early 20th-century fashion
Alexandra Palmer
Early elastic threads and fibres in clothing
Laura Petzold
Material challenges
Identifying modern materials: taking it to the collection
Paul Garside and Paul Wyeth
Man-made fibres from polypropylene to works of art
Thea van Oosten, Ineke Joosten and Luc Megens
Probing the microstructure of protein and polyamide fibres
Paul Garside and Mary M. Brooks
Investigating cellulose nitrate degradation caused by fungal attack
Margarida Silva
Polyurethane foam: investigating the physical and chemical consequences of degradation
Paul Garside and Doon Lovett
Sticky oilskins and stiffened rubber: new challenges for textile conservation
Irene Skals and Yvonne R. Shashoua
The effect of acid dyes on the photodegradation of knitted nylon conservation support net
M.K. Sinha, R.M. Christie and R. Shamey
Freezing the present to preserve the future
Yvonne R. Shashoua
The pits of despair? A preliminary study of the occurrence and deterioration of rubber dress shields
Anna Hodson
Conservation applications: object studies
A global challenge: the search for conservation solutions for Eero Aarnio's Globe/Ball chair
Joelle Wickens
A study of sequins on a Cantonese opera stage curtain
Angela Cheung
Wet look in 1960s furniture design: degradation of polyurethane-coated textile carrier substrates
Tim Bechthold
Storage issues for contemporary textile art: a solution for one example
Rosemary Baker
Television puppets from the 1960s and 1970s: creation, materials and conservation
Rebecca Smith
The treatment of the light-damaged nylon component of a flight suit used during the test flights of Concorde c.1968
Anna Hodson
Modern textile materials in practice at the State Hermitage Museum
Elena Mikolaychuk