My name is Benjamin Mach and I am a PhD Candidate at the University of Technology Sydney.
I am conducting research into alternative sustainable fashion systems, specifically exploring moving towards a community-driven circular economy focused on the reuse, repurposing and recycling of fashion clothing and textiles and would welcome your participation.
Please scroll down to see an example of a workshop project.
The research will involve a workshop running over two consecutive days (Saturday and Sunday), and should take no more than seven hours of your time.
You may be asking "What will I be doing in this workshop?", the aim of the workshop is to share knowledge and skills on how to extend the lifecycle of our clothing, working as a community to share resources (clothing, making skills, ideas, creativity) and create a system where we avoid clothing and textiles making their way to landfill and work with what we already have to create something new!
After completing and submitting this form, I will invite you by email to join a workshop that runs for 7 hours over two consecutive days - Saturday (4hrs) and Sunday (3hrs), breaks included. Please make sure the email address you include below is the best and most direct way to reach you. Emails will be sent out within a few weeks of each workshop.
The following information outlines what your participation will involve:
- donate 3-5 garments from your closet that you no longer wear to be used as materials for the workshop. Other participants may use these garments and you will use garments donated by other participants. These garments will be hung on the ‘Resource Rack’ which will be a communal collection of donated garments for participants to choose their project materials from.
- photographing the garments you choose to donate.
- photographing the garments you choose from the ‘Resource Rack’ to work with for your project during the workshop.
- if you choose, participate in a semi-structured interview, up to 20 minutes, that will be audio and video recorded and transcribed. The conversation and your answers to the interview questions will be used as research data for my PhD thesis and may also be referenced in future research of others, other publications and online (website, social media, blog posts).
- photographing you for the purpose of documenting the workshop experience. (optional)
- observation as you work individually and collectively with others over the duration of the workshop.
- answer a questionnaire within 2 days on completion of the workshop which may take between 15-20mins and submit digitally.
The workshop will be conducted in an established sewing studio in Brooklyn, NY and all sewing equipment will be provided to work on your project during the workshop (sewing machines, scissors, pins, needles, dress forms, irons, threads).
Please complete the form below to express your interest in participating. You will receive a formal invitation by email with further information of the location and your confirmed workshop dates.
Please answer all questions with accuracy.
We will be in touch soon!