Hélène Day Fraser
Assistant Dean and Associate Professor
Education:
MAA, Design
BAA, Fashion
Bio
Hélène Day Fraser is a founding member and co-director of the Material Matters Research Commons at ECU, and a member of ECU’s DESIS lab. From 2013 to 2018 she led the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight-funded cloTHING(s) as Conversation project. In her role as ECU’s Academic Co-ordinator for Sustainability she established Creatives with Intent, a group that promoted agency and communication around sustainability. In 2018 she founded the Material Matters Textile Adaptation Research Program (TARP).
Websites:
Research Interests
Hélène’s textile and garment-based research, informed by a past career in fashion, design, and manufacturing, explores design’s capacity to contribute to better ecosystem relations. Most recently, Hélène has developed ways to deal with climate change through designed objects, understanding design objects as products for mass consumption. Hélène engages with regional materials and the objects made from them to support local, community-based initiatives.
Her recent research collaborations have focused on decolonizing design’s material practices. These include WITH Trees: The New? Material! Relations, Project, Lab: Here//Too//For within the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Fashion Fictions exhibition, and Charred Wood, a collaboration with UBC’s Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) and BioProducts Institute (BPI) and the Nlaka'pamux First Nations’ Boothroyd Band.
