Rate My Professor Molly Ryan

Molly Ryan is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Design and the Built Environment within the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University, where she also serves as a Casual Academic in Fashion and Design. She completed a Master of Research (Fine Arts) in 2023 and a Bachelor of Arts (Fashion) in 2020, both at Curtin University. Ryan's research specialization lies in practice-led investigations of ancestral lace textiles, utilizing their materiality to assemble links between the past, present, and future. Her Master's project examined three lace textiles passed down through five generations, employing textile processes such as stitching to create wearable garments, a large-scale patchwork, and a Creative Process Journal. These outcomes were showcased in her solo exhibition, Lace Assemblages, at the Old Customs House in Walyalup/Fremantle from December 11 to 18, 2022. Additional exhibitions include Exploring Narratives in Lace: The Process at Curtin University's HDR Showcase, highlighting the oscillation of theory and practice to address contemporary social and cultural issues through historical textiles, and participation in the Masters of Design 2024 exhibition.

In addition to her academic role, Ryan is a co-founding director of Fibre Economy, a social enterprise dedicated to managing uniform waste from Western Australia's mining and petroleum sectors. The initiative sorts and redistributes usable workwear to employment charities while providing unusable items to fashion students for upcycling projects. During her undergraduate studies, she interned at Redress, the world's largest sustainable fashion organization in Hong Kong, where she developed expertise in upcycling garments and textiles, inspired by Curtin lecturers. Her graduate collection, Anecdotes le Femme, emphasized sustainable fashion design. Ryan contributed to the report The State of Fashion & Textile Circularity in WA (2023) as a consortium member. She published Lace assemblages: extending social and cultural knowledge in the IFFTI Annual Proceedings Vol. 2 (April 2023) and presented Interlacing the Known and the Unknown: Lace, ancestry and practice-led research at the IOTA24 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial conference. Her creative practice incorporates screen-printing, machine embroidery, upcycling, and natural ink and dye production to realize the potential of pre-loved materials, advocating for sustainable value systems in textiles.