At the Margins emerges from the artistic research project Beyond Heritage: Material Making Meaning and focuses on the reading of established and speculative histories in two specific textile making contexts.

The first part draws on original research by Tim Parry-Williams, into the apparent use of English ‘saved list' cloths, in pre-1900 Norwegian folk dress, revealing sophisticated systems of transfer in textile materials, dyestuffs and minerals. The presented artefacts and textile works propose new stories behind the patterning and colouring of cloth, including the famous Stroud scarlet, as a part of broader global trade and exchange. 

The second, Til Prinds Christian Augusts Minde, by Franz Petter Schmidt, explores the history of the weaving workshop at Prinds Christian Augusts Minde - a former penal institution in central Oslo - where there has been some form of textile production since 1833. Through a series of hand-woven fabrics, photographs and texts, Schmidt’s work addresses the history of the institution, the development of social care in Norway, and textile craft as part of forced labour and punishment.

These expositions offer artistic interpretation of the ‘immaterial’ concepts situated in the objects and sites of cloth making, questioning and materialising multiple perspectives of textiles as part of a wider ‘social fabric.’