Background
Victoria Haire is an artist and designer whose primary medium is woven textiles. Her work investigates the delicate symbiotic relationship between textiles and skin. Her recent output, the Weavesound project, has involved developing 3D silk and silver textiles, based on the surface of eczema, that emit sounds when they are touched. The sounds evidence the materiality of the cloth as well as referencing the materiality of the body. Both silk and silver are used in the treatment of eczema, although the textiles in this project are not intended to be therapeutic.
Since 2021 Victoria has been volunteering at Newtown Textile Museum in mid-Wales, where she organises textile events and teaches weaving workshops. Through these workshops she has become aware of the benefits of hand weaving for mental health and wellbeing. She is currently developing projects that draw on this link, particularly in relationship to the psychological impacts of suffering from skin conditions such as eczema.
