Cynthia Hathaway

Cynthia heads Hathaway Designs, a studio for inclusive space making, activism and collaborative practices. A major focus of Cynthia’s research is off-the-grid groups with tremendous DIY (do-it-yourself) or DIT (do-it-together) skills, ranging from the Mennonites and Amish, giant vegetable growers, antique car hobbyists, maverick scientists, and shepherds. She is co-author of the Repair Manifesto and co-founder of The Repair Society with Joanna van der Zanden. She has collaborated with artist Melle Smets, as design researcher for the African Car project, and co-directed a program called System D Academy, a research studio exploring informal and self-organizing systems.

Since 2015, Cynthia has been tracing the wool trail from the back of a Dutch sheep to giant mountains of post-consumer wool garment waste in Pakistan. She has walked with shepherds in Europe, created documentation along the way, such as an Herbarium of a Sheep's Breakfast, and produced a massive map of wool trails to show the complexity of wool systems. She has extensive wool expertise, how to work with it, and listen to the many stories it holds within its fibers. Cynthia is founder of WASA (Wool Alliance for Social Agency), tracing various streams of expertise associated with this ‘golden fleece’, to re-inform current textile production and design thinking.

Cynthia creates productions for public engagement and knowledge sharing, and with people and animals often considered peripheral. Productions include the Wool March, an annual soft-mob walk through cities with shepherds, sheep and public. Wool March is a growing movement to celebrate shepherding as a regenerative practice, and example of multispecies companionship.

Links:
https://www.hathwaydesigns.org/
linkedin.com/in/cynthia-hathaway-98865b4
@woolmarch

Interviews:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/06cevV16ExjvgQ876UbSvs
https://open.spotify.com/episode/22l2nO816WXQB4mgmBtqN5