The Future of Textiles: Nehal El-Hadi with Miranda Smitheram
FREE
VIEW RECORDING HERE
Join Guest Programmer and Studio Magazine editor-in-chief Nehal El-Hadi in conversation with Miranda Smitheram, Assistant Professor, Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University where she is a member of the Textiles & Materiality Research Cluster. They will discuss the future of textiles and how innovations in their production and design respond to our changing needs.
Nehal El-Hadi is an editor, journalist and researcher based in Toronto. With over 15 years of writing and editing experience, Nehal’s interdisciplinary work has appeared in journalistic, academic, literary and art gallery publications, and is forthcoming in several anthologies and edited collections. Themes explored in her writing include the relationships between virtual and material spaces, the agency of digital objects, and gendered and racialized online experiences. Her short film Blaxites (2019) was commissioned by the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queens University and is being used to teach about the implications of technology use.
Nehal has a Ph.D. in Planning from the University of Toronto and is a Visiting Scholar at York University’s City Institute. She has taught place-based writing courses at the University of Toronto Scarborough and creative non-fiction and poetry to community groups.
Dr. Miranda Smitheram (Ngāi Tahu, Scottish, Swedish, Irish) is a designer, artist and educator who explores sustainable design futures. Originally from Aotearoa (New Zealand), she is currently Assistant Professor of Material Futures in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University. Dr. Smitheram comes from an industry background in fashion and textile design, and her research practice continues to center around materiality, tactility and embodiment. Incorporating ancestral and speculative methods, Miranda collaborates with ecosystems, plant species, and nonhuman kin. Through this she explores developing new materials and processes that contribute to sustainable, relational and Indigenous futures.


Become a Member of the Textile Museum Today
And enjoy unlimited free entry to all the Textile Museum's exhibitions, plus much more.
Join Today