Rag Manifesto - Rachael Matthews

It is time to reconsider the value of our waste. In the past, rags were valuable commodities you could sell on. Gathering rag and turning it into yarn was rich in the possibility of making things. This Rag Manifesto is a unique, artist’s view of the traditional art of rag rug making for this age of the Anthropocene. Projects made in the artist’s studio and with a community group, highlight a reverence for our lost textiles, a response to the environmental impact of fast fashion, and a proof that rag is a rich resource, wrongly classed as a taboo material.

As Sarah Ditum says, ‘To think of ourselves as makers, rather than just consumers, is the first part of refusing to accept everything in our culture as obvious and inevitable.’ Author Rachael Matthews gives us permission to cut up our old fabrics, offering a support structure for decision-making and a chart on how to make liberating decisions about destroying a garment – be it a found item or a misguided purchase – and how our actions can develop community as well as our own self-esteem.

About the author: Rachael Matthews is a lecturer in Textiles at Central St Martins, specialising in Knit and colour. Through the 2020/2021 lockdowns, her practice moved into experiments with weaving after discovering a need to deal with the mounting piles of textiles in her family cupboards and on the streets around her home. This work gained her a placement at The Experimental Weave Lab, hosted by two CSM colleagues, at the Clothworker’s Company in the City of London. Sharing a studio with other experimental weavers and learning about many ancient ways of making things, a new world started to appear, with an endless source of modern materials to hack. Sharing the skills with a diverse community group in East London, the practice deepened with a new knowledge about how people can design together without the training of Art School.