A solo research manifesto exploring how cultural practices and language eroded through colonisation, particularly in an Irish context, might be recovered as a foundation for more sustainable futures in fashion. The project argued that sustainability is inseparable from cultural continuity, and that the erasure of indigenous knowledge systems is itself an act of ecological violence.
The work took several forms: a film combining footage of sewing and Irish landscapes with a poem in English threaded with Irish words, appliqué collages placing natural imagery from Irish mythology alongside words rooted in the land, and threads hand-dyed using natural materials historically used in Ireland. Together, these outputs made an argument through making, using craft as a form of critical research.
I also experimented with augmented reality; I created an AR layer for each collage and the accompanying film, designed to be viewed through a device pointed at the garment. The AR connects the physical textile to the moving image, collapsing the distance between worn object and research narrative. This work was developed in Unity and Adobe Aero, using image tracking to anchor digital content to the surface of the trousers.
