Our latest printed collaboration ‘Sacred Plants Vol.5’ will launch at this year’s Offprint London — a gathering of artists, archives, and independent publishers at Tate Modern.
“Vol. 5 considers the integral relationship between humans and plants through the lens of textile history. In collaboration with Lore Archive, it presents a photographic and written journey into the significance of plant based fabrics and the stories they carry” - Sacred Plants
For Lore Archive, the ’Sacred Plants’ collaboration is the first chapter in a deeper process of material exploration called ‘Unpacking the Collection’ — a project that explores specific materials through research, embodied engagement, and visual storytelling — beginning with surface knowledge such as cut, silhouette, embellishment and weave and using it as a point of entry to explore the deeper cultural, emotional, and ecological meanings held within the material.
Offprint London
16-18 May, 2025
Tate Modern, Turbine Hall
London, SE1 9TG
@sacredplants_@nativebooks@offprint_projects
Introducing Lore Archive, featuring at TEXTUS POETICS 2: What’s.The.Reference? — a unique fashion-poetry performance night as part of Alternative Fashion Week at @referencepoint180
Lore Archive is an artist-led material culture archive founded and run by Sophie Turner. Made up of historical garments, objects and artefacts, the archive works on multidisciplinary research projects at the intersection of art and design as well as collaborations with other creative practitioners to keep reinterpreting and telling new stories with this material. @_lorearchive
View objects from the archive and hear Molly Emma @mollyemmaaa and Phoenix Yemi @phoenixyemoja read poems inspired by them, alongside readings from @mijoda.dajomi@lottie_mccrindell@stuart__mckenzie@troycabida
Set within the REFERENCE.POINT library, references from the collection and beyond will be projected behind each reader as they trace how fashion and material culture have inspired their poetry.
Thursday 19 February/ TONIGHT
7PM doors
7:30–9PM performance
9–11PM DJ set @lanamawlood
Book tickets via Eventbrite - link in @textus.network bio
Very excited to have some of our printed material and a small selection of objects for sale at @referencepoint180 Winter Fair today.
Reference Point
Till 6pm today
Image: Still from a Book by Anna and Sophie published in 2023 and then reprinted in @90antiope in 2024
@a__howard@supportingmaterial
Object Memory is an exhibition and store curated by Present Tense. It brings together artists and makers who work with materials that arrive with their own stories. It looks at materials that—whether salvaged, repurposed, transported, or lifted from different contexts—are rebuilt into new objects that establish new connections.
The exhibition asks whether materials carry memory, and how immaterial connections (stories) influence desirability and enhance future connections. As in poetry, makers play with shape as synonym, and cross-reference received concepts with alternative materials to open new meaning and possibility.
Some works carry a sense of nostalgia, like the latex lamps from Louie Isaaman-Jones which evoke the memory of a clothes line, or the metalwork of Sophie Turner (Lore Archive), whose pieces trace silhouettes laden with the memory of familiar garments.
Opening: Friday 12th, 6:30pm
RSVP via Programme page on presenttense.co.uk
Open daily: 13–21 December Weekdays 9–3pm Sat/Sun 9–6pm
With works by: Louie Isaaman Jones Ame Pearce
Lore Archive Makiko McDonald Lichen
Oficina Slant Editions Monitor Books Bona Varda Lana E F Davies Clay
h0ly grail
A talk by Shelley Fox - Storage Unpacked: The Archive of Shelley Fox
The talk will take place at @_lorearchive London Fields, Hackney, London on Saturday October 4th
7 pm – 9pm
£15 ticket includes 15% off Shelley Fox limited edition T-shirts
DM @_lorearchive for PDF
DM @_lorearchive to secure your spot and receive booking link
All proceeds from ticket sales go directly towards supporting continued research and the unpacking of the Lore Archive collection
Shelley Fox Limited Edition T-Shirts
All the fabrics used are from the original time of sampling and production
Blow Torched Sequins from Collection # 9, Autumn / Winter 2000
Bletchley Park Codes Print from Collection # 10, Spring / Summer 2001
London Fields Print from Collection # 12, Spring / Summer 2002
In this talk Shelley Fox examined the role of her own design archive, posing questions of why she kept it and what it could mean for her future work. It is an archive that has been stored across various geographies and travelled over time. ‘Ruination’ (a word borrowed from the essay ‘Fashion Stranger than Fiction; Shelley Fox’, by Caroline Evans) is key in describing what can be perceived as part of the Shelley Fox aesthetic, and through the unpacking of the archive has led to further ruination amidst an uninvited collaboration with mice; bringing forth new beginnings where time allows for a different perspective.
#fashionarchives #fashionresearch #ruination #limitededitions #textiledesign #blowtorched #deadmice #storage #londonfields
From an interview with Lore Archive founder Sophie Turner, published in Collecting Memory (2023).
“I love how artefacts and objects have the ability to show the passage of time. Each repair, each stitch on these socks holds a memory, a story. Even though I don’t know what those individual stories are, it somehow feels visceral, like a window into time.”
“My practice has always been centred around collecting and finding ways to recontextualise the objects I find.”
@mollyemmaaa@madlyawake@collectingmemory_
Slide 1: Scanned Composition of Napoleonic Fireman’s jacket and Vegetable Ivory Buttons
Slide 2: Tagua Nut photographed at the Economic Botany Collection at Kew Gardens
Slide 3: Image of the Tagua seeds being sliced with a rotary saw
Slide 4: Victorian vegetable ivory (Tagua) rattle
- Vegetable ivory is a plant alternative to ivory and is mostly made out of the seeds of different palm trees.
- This vegetable ivory is made out of tagua which is a hard seed from a South American palm tree.
- The scientific name is Phytelephas aequatorialis. Sometimes it is also called ‘The elephant tree’.
- The seed will also be called a nut. It is an oval/ball shape perfectly fitting in the palm of your hand. It often gets called a nut as well.
- It has a black/brownish shell like a coconut and when peeled of, shows a hard white, looking like ivory.
- It is often used to make objects, buttons or jewellery out of as it is very easy to carve into.
- It takes 15 - 20 years for the trees to produce ‘mococha’ which are cobs that can be up to 0.5m big. Each of them have 50 - 100 water filled capsules, this water is essential to all palm trees.
- After about 8 months after harvesting, the inside of the nut is soft and milky and can be drunk like a coconut. AT 10 months it hardens and can be eaten like a coconut.
- When the fruit’s are fully ripe and fall off the tree, that is when they are hard and can be used as ivory.
- Three times a year a palm can have around 10 - 20 mocha’s and 1 mocha contains about 20 nuts
- Tagua has been used in this way since the 1800’s
For more information on our research and development services please get in contact: [email protected]
