The textile industry went through some major changes in the recent decades: new technologies introduced innovative manufacturing techniques and materials, while the rising interest in sustainability is constantly challenging fast fashion processes.
These reasons pushed quite a few countries with a textile tradition to find new strategies to face global competition and present innovative approaches in design, engineering and technology.
Swiss textile companies, in particular those based in Eastern Switzerland, have developed in the last few years projects and researches to look at the potential of their textiles. The results of their work will be exhibited at the "Textile Industry & Artists in Residence" event (21st April - 18th June) at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur.
The event provides insights into the programme of the Textile and Design Alliance (TaDA). The funding programme includes both international designers, artists and cultural practitioners (six candidates a year), invited to use a local studio in Arbon and develop a project with a wide range of companies and institutions in Eastern Switzerland, including the Textilmuseum in St.Gallen.
The TaDA residency went from strength to strength: since 2019, over 850 applications from 86 countries were received and assessed by a jury. The 18 participants selected so far – designers, artists and architects among tem – are given unique freedom to experiment using on-site knowledge and production possibilities.
The exhibition at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur will allow visitors to discover the three-year pilot programme through the works of 13 artists involved in the alliance to show visitors the potentially positive impact that a multi-disciplinary approach combining design, culture, technology and economy, can have on textiles.
The presentation at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur does not primarily show products or completed works, but focuses instead on the process of cooperation between culture, technology and business. Project examples include combining traditional embroidery on Saurer AG machines with the latest fibre technology from Empa, changing the functionality of fabrics by laser cutting or applications at Lobra, or using "maladjustments" of the embroidery machine to try out new ways of expression or process.
Among the other artists on display this year there's also Stéphanie Baechler who worked as a Textile Developer/Design Assistant for Hussein Chalayan in London and was Head of Print Design for the Swiss textile company Jakob Schlaepfer for three years.
Since then, she has worked on sculptures and has developed a dialogue between ceramics and textiles. Her works on display here look at the tactile dimension and interaction between body, movement and space.
The desire to let different materials or entities dialogue together is also behind the research carried out by South-Korean Aesun Kim. The artist is interested in human-computer interactions and expresses them through new digital aesthetics: her current research revolves around exploring creative, multi-sensory e-textile wearable interfaces that react by human bio signal data such as the heartbeat rate.
Laura Deschl, a social designer and artist favouring research-driven academic work often accompanied by object or material based forms of expression, is also interested in therapeutic textiles and in how objects can initiate, regulate and influence human emotions.
Some of the researchers included in the event aren't strictly textile artists: Maidje Meergans is a documentary photographer from Berlin currently developing a project on the craftspeople working in the textile industry; Quang Vinh Nguyen is a Swiss product designer of Vietnamese origins investigating the culinary and folksy traditions of Vietnam in various media.
The traditions of their home countries inspired many of the artists involved, including Olaniyi Rasheed Akindiya, an interdisciplinary artist born in Lagos, Nigeria, whose works are inspired by the traditional textiles and iconic weaving crafts of Nigeria and Ghana.
Akindiya is interested in the role of textiles in Nigeria's society and the unwritten history of industrial embroidery in his country in relation to trade with Europe.
Art and fashion combine instead in Alexandra Hopf's works that translate the geometric silhouettes of Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist paintings into clothes or reinterpret the Constructivist uniform clothing designed by artists such as Varvara Stepanova, Vladimir Tatlin, and Alexander Rodchenko.
There will be more to discover for textile fans at the "Textile Industry & Artists in Residence" event at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, artists instead should keep in mind that the next call for the residency will be launched in June 2023.
All images in this post courtesy the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur and by / copyright Ladina Bischof
1. Sonia Li: Buddhaverse, Installation, 2021
2. Victoria Manganiello: Studio view during TaDA residency, 2022
3. Benjamin Mengistu Navet: Franged jacquard made at Tisca, 2022
4. Stéphanie Baechler: The fates are talking, working at Saurer, 2020
5. Aesun Kim: Studio View at TaDA, 2021
6. Maidje Meergans: Reportage at Saurer, 2021
7. Quang Vinh Nguyen: Padded weave realised at Tisca, 2020
8. Alexandra Hopf: Die Bauern, 2020
9. Andrea Winkler: Working in the TaDA Studio, 2021
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