Lasting Impressions, 2016 & 2017 by Claire Wellesley-Smith and Hannah Lamb. A site-specific, performative piece commissioned by for Saltaire Arts Trail.

In May 2016 Hannah Lamb and Claire Wellesley-Smith created a performative and participatory work called Lasting Impressions in the vast spinning room at Salts Mill, Bradford, West Yorkshire. During the three days of Saltaire Arts Trail visitors were invited to take part by contributing an impression of an item of clothing they were wearing into a small porcelain clay tile. Each participant was also asked to record key information about that item of clothing on a numbered label. In exchange for their contribution participants were offered a small gold or silver stitch in their clothing as a thank you and a marker of taking part. The tiles and the labels grew throughout the weekend into a mass of information and responses. 306 people took part during the weekend. The following year, working in the same space, the artists created 'Lasting Impressions: Cloth Taxonomies' as a means to archive the responses from 2016. Again participants were invited to become a part of the performance, taking one of the numbered labels from 2016 and matching it to the corresponding fired porcelain tile. People were invited to select a length of yarn from the collection of natural, man-made and synthetic fibres, cross referencing the information on their allocated label. Each yarn was then woven into a Lasting Impressions archive using a table-top 8-shaft weaving loom. The individual entries were separated by a red thread. Throughout the weekend the woven archive grew and people continued to contribute their own textile memories and observations. A project publication featuring interviews and essays is available.