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On Mending

Stories of Damage and Repair

Celia Pym

Description

Celia Pym lives in London and has been exploring damage and repair in textiles since 2007. Working with garments that belong to individuals as well as items in museum archives, she has broad experience with stories of damage, from moth holes to accidents with fire.

She is interested in exploring the varied evidence of damage, and how repair draws attention to the places where garments and cloth wear down and grow thin. These personal tales document the intimate damage caused to clothing by everyday use and the parallels with the consequent wear and tear on the body.

Mending work builds on what is left behind. It's not replacing, or remaking, or cutting apart and putting back together, instead it is slow work that makes things better. It conjures an unhurried recovery or change. In textiles, the act of mending wear-and-tear, thinning cloth or accidental damage builds on what already exists, anchoring threads and yarn into the robust healthy fabric and filling in the holes or reinforcing the areas that are weak.