The devotion of the Tilburg-based TextielMuseum and TextielLab for yarns is shown in the opening pages of the new Yearbook through images of cone of yarns in neutral or bright shades, pictured as if they were talismans or objects charged with a fetishistic power.
The museum and knowledge centre/working atelier are run on principles that could be summarised with three words - explore, experiment and innovate. A pioneering staff is ready to help designers to develop on looms or high-tech equipment innovative projects that take forward into the future the local heritage of Tilburg, heartland of the Dutch textiles and fabrics.
The Yearbook is a key annual publication for many professionals - from artists and designers to architects and textile lecturers - but it's also a must for amateurs in love with weaving, knitting, embroidering, digital printing and textiles in general.
The recently released Yearbook 2013 is packed with a series of groundbreaking projects revolving around different fields and disciplines, including art, interior design and fashion.
The first part of the volume features larger tapestries and special works commissioned by museums, private clients, such as hotels or design studios, and universities, among them Studio Marcel Wanders' "Phoebe 4" - a 3D lampshade, made from knitted spheres of mohair, monofilaments and elastic; Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe's cushioned organic cotton book-rests covered in patterns and combining historical events in the foreground with additional embroidery creating an extra layer of history, and designed for the National Archives of the Netherlands; Chris Kabel's curtain in which glow-in-the-dark yarn woven into the fabric recreates the Aurora Borealis, and Fashion Museum Hasselt & Mass Architects' skyline of Florence in colourful stripes à la Missoni.
The book allows readers to discover how traditional techniques such as tufting, more used in carpet making, can be employed in art projects achieving wonderful results as proved by Jan Koen Lomans' natural landscapes, and Kloppenburg & van Egteren's Rembrandt sketch (that took one entire year to tuft), while complex designs like Kusta Saaksi's "Hypnompompic" tapestries prove a textile designer can also be a colourist.
Architextiles - sculptural and sound-absorbent fabrics that can have an audio-visual impact by improving acoustics and appealing to the eye - are particularly intriguing, but so are projects that combine technology with traditional crafts such as Phillip Stearns' who transformed digital data streams into woven tapestry.
The fashion section of the Yearbook opens with the inventive and sculptural mini-collections developed by young designers for the Wool Fashion challenge event, but features also digital printed collections by Krjst, and experimental scarves by Aliki van der Kruijs in which the main pattern is created when falling rain touches the water-sensitive ink.
This part is enriched by jewellery pieces and small accessories: Ineke Heerkens combined in her unusual necklaces hard glazed clay pieces with natural/synthetic yarns, and Corné Gabriëls's bowties feature instead woven butterfly motifs.
The Young Talent section of the Yearbook is an exciting trip through techniques such as embroidering using new software modules or laser cutting latex sheets and matching them with fabrics, and features projects in which a clever use of yarns mimicks the skin texture or produces subtle reflective patterns.
The book closes with chapters on exclusive collaborations and educational projects. There are many collaborations worth mentioning: Glithero employed punch organ cards to design an abstract pattern on jacquard looms; a strawberry motif by William Morris inspired instead Minale Maeda's unique bench that shows a plant growing from one season to the next, while Winde Rienstra came up with a Swarovski studded yarn for her knitwear pieces that referenced Dutch astronomer Eise Eisinga (who also made a living combing wool).
Since sharing knowledge is one of the main aims of the TextielLab, the working atelier lanches every year trainee schemes, workshops and internships with European institutes to allow students and graduates to develop innovative projects, like Sara Vandeveire's conceptual soft cocooning scarf with reflective yarns tracing on the outside blurred figures hinting at our confusingly chaotic modern world.
The volume is accompanied by a booklet with short chapters focusing on the professional figures working at the TextielLab, and the two publications are held together by an elastic cord knitted in the lab and produced in various versions - just a little sample of what they are actually capable of coming up with at this unique working atelier.
The Yearbook (€16) is available from the TextielShop of the TextielMuseum.
All images in this post courtesy TextielMuseum/TextielLab, Tilburg.
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