The Partnership Quilt: An Interactive Living Archive of Sex Worker Voices

Abstract

Working alongside people who use and manage a local charity and professional quilters, we sewed a quilted blanket which we augmented with capacitive touch sensors to turn the craft Piece into an interactive archiver. In this way, the quilt tells the story of the women who were involved in making it not only through the seams, but also with our embedded voices. We describe the process of quilting a digitally augmented social fabric and the ways in which the sewing allowed us to learn through the seams, we present a project that brings together aspects of human connection, crafted learning, and living archival practice.