Misca Birklein-Lagassé is a recipient of the Concordia Undergraduate Student Research Award (CUSRA). Birklein-Lagassé is a BFA candidate at Concordia University, studying Fibres and Material Practices and Art History. Her current project, Replication of Production: Material Means of Making, considers the history of garment manufacturing in the Montréal.
Birklein-Lagassé’s research project follows three means of textile production: in factories, in ateliers and in domestic spaces. The research considers the ways these different spaces reflects in production. In factories knowledge and making processes are fractured; components are made individually on an assembly line. In ateliers knowledge is transferred through apprenticeships; the apprentice learns from a master the entire process of making. In domestic spaces knowledge is framed as being self taught or transfer through informal methods.
Birklein-Lagassé is spending the summer developing her project from the Textiles and Materiality Research Cluster. As part of this project she will be visiting ateliers and workshops in Montréal.
Photo credit: Zac Bailey.
textiles + materiality research cluster 