Battledress is a collaboration between Debbie Ballin and Dr Rachel Genn at Manchester Writing School and Human Studio, Sheffield.
The first phase of this research is an exhibtion entitled: BATTLEDRESS at Festival of the Mind, Sheffield
From 15th -25th September 2022
At: Events Central, Fargate, Sheffield
Accompanied by an Artist Talk: 20th September, 5.00pm Spiegeltent, Barkers Pool, Sheffield
“In 1980’s Sheffield, we dressed in jockey silks, danced like we meant it and fought because we had to” (Genn 2021)
BATTLEDRESS investigates how methodologies of oral history, archive and immersive technologies can create alternative ‘encountered’ histories and provoke new insights into working-class women’s experiences of fighting, fashion and allegiance.
This research builds on Genn’s personal story “Streetfighting Girls’ for The New Statesman (2021) about the social and economic pressures on girls approaching womanhood in 1980s Sheffield. Exploring challenging themes of women’s violence, its relationship to power (and perceived invincibility) and especially how fashion fits with these themes. The project seeks to illuminate how immersive techniques can reimagine working class women’s stories, creating ‘encountered’ narratives that disturb the way existing working-class histories are framed. BATTLEDRESS examines how story and form can enmesh to bring out intimate disclosures about sometimes challenging subjects and explores how clothes, as signifiers of intention and allegiance, play a major role in tribal ritual, identification, and behaviour, and asks how, when and why we interact with such narratives.
The first phase of this research is an exhibtion entitled: BATTLEDRESS at Festival of the Mind, Sheffield
From 15th -25th September 2022
At: Events Central, Fargate, Sheffield
Accompanied by an Artist Talk: 20th September, 5.00pm Spiegeltent, Barkers Pool, Sheffield
“In 1980’s Sheffield, we dressed in jockey silks, danced like we meant it and fought because we had to” (Genn 2021)
BATTLEDRESS investigates how methodologies of oral history, archive and immersive technologies can create alternative ‘encountered’ histories and provoke new insights into working-class women’s experiences of fighting, fashion and allegiance.
This research builds on Genn’s personal story “Streetfighting Girls’ for The New Statesman (2021) about the social and economic pressures on girls approaching womanhood in 1980s Sheffield. Exploring challenging themes of women’s violence, its relationship to power (and perceived invincibility) and especially how fashion fits with these themes. The project seeks to illuminate how immersive techniques can reimagine working class women’s stories, creating ‘encountered’ narratives that disturb the way existing working-class histories are framed. BATTLEDRESS examines how story and form can enmesh to bring out intimate disclosures about sometimes challenging subjects and explores how clothes, as signifiers of intention and allegiance, play a major role in tribal ritual, identification, and behaviour, and asks how, when and why we interact with such narratives.