Stitching at the End of the World: Rethinking Privacy Through Textile Practice at Manchester Museum
Stitching at the End of the World, a workshop led by Lydia Donohue, paired hands-on textile making with discussion of privacy, surveillance, and autonomy in the digital era with participants creating phone pouches from Electromagnetic Shielding fabric.
Written by Lydia Donohue with photographs by Tom Longstaff.
On the top floor of Manchester Museum, participants gathered for 鈥淪titching at the End of the World,鈥� a workshop that paired hands-on textile making with discussion of privacy, surveillance, and autonomy in the digital era.
Led by , a PhD researcher in Social Anthropology, and part of the open-source artwork Kill Your iPhone, the session guided attendees in creating phone pouches from Electromagnetic Shielding fabric. This material blocks the device from communicating with the technological infrastructure. Once inside, they are cut off from the mobile network and effectively become a 鈥渄ead phone.鈥�
Supported by funding and , the workshop was not only about making a practical tool. As participants stitched their pouches, conversations unfolded about cybersecurity, personal autonomy, and the role of 鈥榮mart textiles鈥� in shaping everyday life. Sewing became a way to reflect on how digital systems structure our choices, and how creative practices can open space to challenge them.
The session bridged STEM research, future-fabric technologies, anthropology, and creative education, showing how textiles can serve both as functional objects and as critical methods of inquiry. By linking material practice to large-scale debates on surveillance and digital dependency, the workshop demonstrated how interdisciplinary and material methods can address pressing social questions surrounding civil liberty and privacy.
Textiles, with their slowness and tactile qualities, stand in sharp contrast to the invisible speed of digital infrastructures. Making a shielding pouch thus became more than a technical exercise: it was an invitation for participants to imagine how they might reclaim agency in a hyper-connected world, offering them the choice to connect or to disconnect.
Through its blend of craft, theory, and public dialogue, 鈥淪titching at the End of the World鈥� offered a fresh perspective on how we can reimagine autonomy in an increasingly connected world.