Research
Research interests
- Design heritage as a driver for innovation policy in the textile industry
- Narrative and material culture of textile production, with special interests in community narratives and retention of textile heritage
- Speculative thinking on textiles and interdisciplinarity through film, weaving and writing
Current research
As a weaver and digital media artist, Clio has built a body of work that visually explores how cloth can function as a repository of personal narratives and material histories. Working with post production techniques to construct the digital screen as a fabric, she has developed an original visual language where video images are informed by textile methodologies such as folding, weaving, layering, quilting and lace. The consistent aim of the research has been to engage audiences with valorising and recovering textile skills, the shared cultural significance of making cloth and the renewal of industry informed by heritage and social values.
In 2017 Sustainability and the Social Fabric. Europe’s new textile Industries was published by Bloomsbury Academic. Ongoing research explores how public policy can help retain textile manufacturing heritage, and to what extent the creative social capital of skilled textile manufacturing communities is enabling growth and innovation in EU textile and fashion SMEs. This underlying question is at the centre of all recent outputs. Her research findings indicate that textile making can be understood as a social and progressive process of identity creation, inflected by the clustering of diverse narratives.
Clio’s current focus is on how these narratives of construction engage with social values, and by extension, policy agendas and entrepreneurial environments in support of the creative industries. She is involved with the Creative Industries Federation, Creative Skillset, Westminster Media Forum, and SMEs that have developed educational accreditation to upskill fragile local communities. Her most recent research is aimed at exploring collaborative creation of new products and socially sustainable manufacturing models.
Since 2008, Clio has been working with other international stakeholders on EU funded projects, exploring design heritage as a driver for innovation policy in the textile industry. Her scholarly work explores the narrative and material culture of textile production, with special interests in community narratives and retention of textile heritage. Clio publishes speculative thinking on textiles and interdisciplinarity through film, weaving and writing. She is co-author of Sustainability and the Social Fabric - Europe’s new textile industries, 2017, Bloomsbury Academic.
Competitively funded research projects:
Academic project leader: EurotexId, EU Culture Programme programme project, 2008-2010
Research fellow: Plustex, Interreg IVC project, European Regional Development Fund, 2011-2014.