Jacquard Film

Part of Hannah’s DYCP project: The Jacquard Project, a project to give a new lease of life to an industrial jacquard machine.
She captured film of the loom and the activity surrounding it. This footage was edited together by Karanjit Panesar.

Through the film Hannah seeks to capture and share a small slice of this technical, social and material history of West Yorkshire.

Hannah encountered numerous technical difficulties during the early stages of the project.  She had to find highly skilled people to help. From these engineers, weavers and electricians she learned how the loom was made and designed, how it functions behind the metal casing. Hannah has been lucky to learn about weaving from people who have spent their whole lives in the trade, who are enviably comfortable with the machine. She heard stories about apprenticeships, significant mills in the area, the people they learnt from, the types of machines from the past, as well as tricks to coax the machine into working.

Hannah captured footage with an phone to help remember the specialist processes, the movements of hands and stories told around the loom.

Karanjit has edited together some of the footage to create a film which captures some of the atmosphere of making and sharing, and the skills, humour and generosity of the weavers who have supported the project.