Careworn

Sophie-Nicole Dodds presents Careworn, her first solo show, curated in collaboration with Abigail Jubb.

careworn
adjective
– showing signs of care or worry; fatigued by trouble or anxiety; haggard:
a careworn old woman.
– appearing tired, worried and unhappy:
her mother, who couldn’t have been much more than 30, looked old and careworn.

The exhibition brings together Sophie’s drawings, prints and garments with objects from the Goldsmiths Textile Collection as it maps their relationship along lines of wear, repair, and care. In blurring the boundaries between these and the wornnesthey represent, it explores the ways in which our experiences of the historical archive resonate with the material memories we collect for ourselves. Making, wearing, mending and caring are here celebrated as processes of not just he past but present.

Shown here in addition to new works that respond to the collection are those created during Sophie’s residency at Dumfries House, workshops at the School of Historical Dress, and from her own material memories.

Sophie-Nicole Dodds studied Bespoke Tailoring at the London College of Fashion and interned for Wales Bonner, John Skelton and the Royal Opera House. Since then, she has worked as a textile hand-worker for Roberts Wood, a costume assistant for film and theatre, and currently as a Fashion Support Technician at Central Saint Martins. In 2020 she completed her MA in Design: Expanded Practice at Goldsmiths, where her making focused on expanded fashion practices. She became drawn to everyday moments of wear and the importance of the ‘archive’ became central to her work. In 2021 she designed and created two displays at The Courtauld Gallery & Science Museum for a project called Illuminating Objects, featuring items from their collection. She completed The Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School in 2022.

sophienicoledodds@outlook.com
@sophienicoledodds

Abigail Jubb is a multidisciplinary fashion researcher, lecturer and creative practitioner working across academia, industry and heritage. She is currently a University of Glasgow Library Visiting Research Fellow, Wolfson Foundation Scholar and PhD Candidate at the University of York, where her research explores how the development of standard sizing systems within the British fashion industry changed women’s experiences of their bodies. She is also co-founder of Worn Workshop, which produces creative projects about people’s relationships with their clothes to challenge throwaway fashion cultures through new approaches. Her work has been exhibited at COP26 and the London Design Biennale, and her recent zine publication ’12 Stories From the Worn Archive’ is distributed internationally through Public Knowledge Books.

Abigail.jubb@york.ac.uk
@abigailjubb

Images courtesy of The Constance Howard Gallery, and Sophie-Nicole Dodds, London.