Repairing for the Future

In this presentation, Kate Irvin, Curator of Costume and Textiles at the RISD Museum, will highlight the lessons that worldwide practices of mending offer our community today and conjecture where such examples might lead us in the future. Focus will move from historic objects, the maker’s hand, and the care taken in the creation and life extension of singular, meaningfully crafted functional objects to overarching concerns of environmental, industrial, and societal repair.

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Kate Irvin is Curator and Head of the Department of Costume and Textiles at the RISD Museum. There she oversees a collection of 30,000 fashion and textile items that range in date from 1500 BCE to the present and represent traditions and innovations across the globe. Her most recent exhibition was Repair and Design Futures (October 5, 2018-June 30, 2019), a year-long multidisciplinary exhibition and programming initiative that investigated mending as material intervention, metaphor, and as a call to action. The exhibition showcased objects of repair from around the globe enhanced by talks, workshops, and academic projects that highlighted innovative contemporary art and design work illuminated and electrified by repair-oriented practices.

Age-Friendly RI is a coalition of community and state agencies, healthcare and social service providers, older adults, advocacy and faith-based organizations as well as businesses, academic institutions and municipal leaders. Our mission is to create partnerships and build community that supports Rhode Islanders as they age.

Presented with Age-Friendly RI
Image: Japanese, Short Coat (Hanten), mid 1800s. Museum purchase: Museum Works of Art Fund and Museum property, by exchange.