I'm republishing today a feature about the CSM Textile Futures course that I recently did for Dazed Digital.
For the first time students from the MA Textile Futures programme at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design will be showcasing their work at Ventura Lambrate, an independent event taking place during Milan Design Week and featuring 45 creative exhibitions from all over the world.
The Textile Futures exhibition introduces the work of this year’s graduating students.
The projects showcased explore science, biotechnologies and stem cell research (Natsai Chieza); look at the possibility of building a fashion atelier of the future where designers create materials that are grown and not made (Amy Congdon) or tackle nanotechnology via different recipes based on chemical synthesis and molecular self-assembly to create a unique info-electro-biotic dish (Priyanka Gaitonde).
Technology and architecture are also explored with studies on three dimensional textile forms (Priyal Garg), comparisons between traditional textiles and Rapid Manufacturing (RM) technologies (Laura Martinez) and textiles that create expandable living spaces for the urban honeybee using biodegradable, natural materials (Amy Pliszka).
Issues of emotional resonance and transience are instead analysed through pieces expressing intangible emotions (Mianmian Zheng), questioning our perceptions (Miriam Ribul), reconnecting people with sensibility, tactility and sensory experiences (Marie Rouillom) or exploring immateriality in a technological future (Jenny Lee).
There is also a focus on indigenous craft with projects looking at traditional plant fibres and techniques informing new materials (Hao-Ni Tsai), at the potential of using earth for colouration with more than 45 different soils collected from varied geographical locations in South Korea and the UK (Hyun Jin Jeong) and at the power of superstitious beliefs and devotions interacting with a high-tech future (Isabel Pradilla) while embroidered springtime blossoms blooming on neglected corners of the urban landscape are employed to add a touch of poetry to our lives (Wei Chen).
Further experiments combine unexpected materials such as rubber, fur, tile-filler and an aesthetic informed by Rorschach ink-like blots to create a new tactile and visual experience (Andreea Mandrescu), try to find ways to experience the intangible expressions of our unconscious mind via poetic prostheses (Ann-Kristin Abel) and develop ephemeral design using biodegradable elements from food waste (Dhanyapat Sajjalaksana).
The Milan exhibition acts as a prelude to the students final degree show to be held in London in June and invites visitors to discuss and debate the issues raised.
Each project is framed by a research question and the design pieces encourage viewers to discuss and question the students discovering the rich concepts and research behind their work.
Senior Lecturer Caroline Till highlights how this is an opportunity for the course to build its international reputation while bringing something different to the design week.
What’s the main aim of the MA Textile Futures course?
Caroline Till: We hope to nurture imaginative, resourceful designers who have the potential to shift existing design boundaries, re-shape how we live, and create the textiles of tomorrow. The course ethos is to approach textile design as a form of industrial design but with a focus on the language and codes inherent to textiles. By exploring key contextual questions to interrogate, critique and propose new design concepts, we invite our designers to engage fully with the challenges of designing for the 21st century. The students are encouraged to form a personal definition of ‘Textile Futures’, analysing the wider context of their work as well as their role as designers. For example, Natsai Chieza adopts the role of a design provocateur, exploring the cultural and environmental implications of synthetic biology and stem cell research, while Hao-Ni Tsai looks at reviving indigenous Taiwanese textile craft techniques.
How is the course structured?
Caroline Till: The course is structured in two units over two years. The first unit is a fast-paced series of intensive workshops introducing students to a range of new skills and ideas. The second unit is totally self-directed by the student who frame their own research question to drive design work. The course thrives on diversity: one week the students may be taking part in a lace making workshop with a lace expert, the next week they may be learning arduino and processing, or creating edible photovoltaic cells. We also undertake various industrial collaborative projects with a range of partners, including Samsonite, Microsoft, Nissan and EDF. This rich, diverse experience leads to the creation of a personal response and individual definition of the notion of ‘Textile Futures’, encouraging students to synthesize social, cultural, political and economic research into relevant and resilient design work.
In which ways will the showcase during the Ventura Lambrate event engage the visitors and inspire interior/fashion designers?
Caroline Till: Practice-led, the course initiates and encourages design research and innovation in relation to issues affecting the textile design discipline in the short, medium, and long-term sustainable future(s). Our curriculum is based around an evolving set of research questions based on five key themes: Smart, Invisible, Sustainable, Ethical and Poetic. Students will hopefully have gained tools and understanding to look outward, consider how wider contextual observations can translate into creative design proposals and consider sustainability in new ways. Therefore each project presented in Milan poses questions, rather than providing answers, encouraging discussion and debate around current and emerging issues.
Quite a few students looked at textiles in connection with scientific researches: in your opinion will science have a stimulating role in the future of creative disciplines?
Caroline Till: Crossover with other design disciplines as well as with science and socio-economics are more pertinent than ever. Rapid changes in culture, economics and technology need dynamic designers who can propose and realise intelligent, responsible innovations with strategic thought, leadership and personal vision. Some of the themes we interrogate include: how do we reconcile ecology and smart technology? With current progress in nanotechnologies, how do we engineer invisible functions with new aesthetics? How can biomimicry principles inform the design of resilient textiles? Will scientists become designers? In the spirit of designing for a resilient future, issues of production, waste and post-consumption drastically change potential design processes and outputs. Building on these themes, the key intention of this project is to give students new tools to research and filter wider socio-cultural, environmental, economic and political factors leading to a sophisticated contextual approach to their work.
Can you introduce us some of the most recent research projects carried out in the context of the Textile Futures course?
Caroline Till: Our core Academic Team consists of three key members, our course director Carole Collet, Kate Goldsworthy and I. We are all part time since we are involved in research and professional activities and we are also part of the Textile Futures Research Centre, comprising researchers across Chelsea College of Art and Design, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and the London College of Fashion. I feel extremely lucky to work within an environment producing pioneering research and design work: for example Research Fellow Suzanne Lee whose project ‘Bio Couture’ looks at growing textiles from bacterial-cellulose, aiming to harness nature to address sustainable issues, and Kate Goldsworthy whose work looks at laser techniques to upcycle and pattern synthetic materials, making textile products less complex in their material ‘make-up’ to ensure a clear path for recycling.
Textiles Futures will be showcasing in Via Massimiano 6, Milan, during the Ventura Lambrate event, 12th -17th April 2011.
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We interviewed Textile Futures graduate Jenny Lee about her designs for 'digital skins' and her use of augmented reality in her project for the degree show:
http://www.jotta.com/jotta/published/home/article/v2-published/1741/jenny-lee-immateriality-the-future-human
Posted by: jotta.com | August 09, 2011 at 01:13 PM