https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5764-9279
Dr Helena Britt is Programme Leader for Textile Design at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA). She manages the undergraduate programme, while supporting and supervising learning and teaching, and postgraduate research. Helena’s research explores textile design histories, creative processes and art school pedagogies through archival inquiry, practice-based research, oral testimony and curatorial methods. She forms and contributes to collaborative projects that reinterpret textile archives through exhibitions, publications and public engagement. Ongoing research examines how textile designers reinterpret design practices, motifs and procedures to generate new work.
Recent investigation focused on the archive of visual artist Fraser Taylor and the 1980s collective The Cloth. Helena collaborated with the curatorial organisation, Panel and Taylor, on 'Instant Whip: The Textiles and Papers of Fraser Taylor 1977–1987 Revisited', which, through exhibition, publication and outreach activities, presented archival material alongside new works by Taylor made in response to revisiting his archive. With partners GSA Archives and Collections, Reid Gallery and Print Clan, supported by Creative Scotland and The Hope Scott Trust, project outcomes explored printed textile design, interdisciplinarity, and Glasgow’s creative culture between 1977-87. The project drew on findings arising from Helena’s Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship 'The Cloth: Exploring Creative Collaboration and Interdisciplinarity, 1977-87'.
Earlier projects include 'Interwoven Connections: The Stoddard Templeton Design Studio and Design Library, 1843–2005', funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Design History Society. Findings increased understanding of carpet design in Scotland by examining the workings of the Stoddard Templeton design studio, particularly the use of the design library, now a GSA Library special collection. Other projects have examined post-war female pattern designers represented in GSA's archive through collaboration with Archives and Collections and the Centre for Advanced Textiles (CAT). Doctoral research examined the role of the textile designer educator working in an increasingly digital age and explicated the significance of creative practice to the role and evolving connected educational contexts.
Helena is co-editor for the Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, a steering group member of the Association of Fashion & Textile Courses (FTC) and a member of the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Review College.
Textile design histories and archives; printed textile design, digital technologies and creative processes; practice-based and curatorial research methods; collaborative and interdisciplinary design approaches; design pedagogies and creative arts education histories.
Historical and contemporary textile design; place-based and material-led design research; archives, collections and curatorial practice; practice-based and practice-led research methodologies; creative arts education, design pedagogy, research-teaching linkages.
Cecilia Charlton - Scottish Pre-industrial Textiles from the 18th-19th Centuries: Repositioning the Significance of Craft Narratives in Histories of Rurality, Migration and Production. SGSAH CDA Funded.
Mhari McMullan - Patterning Paisley: Museum retail and strategies for commercialising a historic textile collection through contemporary textile practice. SGSAH CDA Funded.
Megan Allan - Sustainable sensibilities: exploring approaches to supporting and developing sustainability focused learning for textile design higher education at the Glasgow School of Art. MRes.
Jonathan Cleaver - The interrelationship of carpet weaving technologies and design in the work of James Templeton and Company, Glasgow, carpet manufacturer, 1890 – 1939. SGSAH Funded PhD.
