Textiles can be created specifically to fulfil the needs or demands of specific contexts. For example, a designer might work to a brief to develop a durable textile in a specific colour palette for seating in public transport or a parasol outside a shop. Below is an image of the seats on my local bus. They are designed with extra strong fabric due to having a lot of people sitting on these seats everyday. After so long they will eventually have some wear and tear but that shouldn’t be for a while as they are designed to be durable.

I went into a shop to see if i can find any utilitarian textiles. I took photos of all the textiles i could see that was being used in a particular manner. The first one a saw is the doormat to wipe your feet on the way in. This is a good use of textiles because it stops the shop floor from getting dirty or wet depending on the weather.

Refer to ‘Room Six: Territories’ pages 146 & 147

Investigate ‘Gers’ and other such textile based shelters/homes such as Wigwams, Tipis and Tents.

In the book, PLACE by T.Dean and J.Millar on page 146, Mette Tronvoll talks about their journey through Mongolia. ” A ger is a round, white tent and is the home of the nomads living on the steppes in Mongolia. For almost 3000 years, the shape and the function of the ger has remained the same”. Here, textiles has been used to create shelters for people in Mongolia. It is a useful item that is now used all over the world. A more commonly known tent is what most people in the world use to go camping out with the family or friends. It is made out of a waterproof textiles that protects the inside layers from getting wet. So the tent is definitely a useful item.

I found a page in one of my textile magazines that show you how to create a wigwam. Again, this is very similar to a ger, tepee or a tent, just a slightly different design. The difference between a wigwam and a tepee is that tepees are more portable whereas wigwams are stationary.

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Straub’s textiles designs were first handmade on a loom using some Slow Design principles. The pattern of fabric portrays the identity of the transport vehicles. It is used frequently throughout the years by public transport, therefore it becomes associated with transportation vehicles. It brings comfort for those with long shifts and travelling long journeys. The bright colours of the fabric bring the space alive and making it more visually pleasing. The material is strong and durable to withheld commuters and everything that a commuter brings with them. Overall these aspects make people content with their journey whether it is long or short.

The austerity of the scene is overwhelming, compounded by the booming heartbeats that seem to emit from nowhere and yet all around – time being measured out by human life.

Cummings, 2010

ART or DESIGN

TEMPORARY or PERMANENT

LARGE SCALE or SMALL SCALE

TRANSFORMING and/or DEFINING and/or FORMING

IMMERSIVE and/or DISTANT

PATTERN and/or COLOUR and/or REPETITION and/or SHAPE

In addition to the garments, the noise of heartbeats permeates the exhibition, why do you think that may be?

Seeing the pieces of peoples lives through the clothes in a graveyard layout as well as hearing the heartbeat spread across the exhibition really brings it to life and not in a good way. It makes you feel sad and grieve for those who lost their lives.

To what extent are the textiles transformed into something other than fabric?

The textiles piled up towards the back of the exhibition is transformed into a mountain of clothes and the individual squares of clothes could represent the multiple campsites and base camps along the way up the mountain. However, the textiles could also represent a concentration camp. The organised squares implies human organisation such as victims being controlled in these camps.

What’s the significance of the installation title – and of the mechanical grabber?

Personnes in French means person or nobody. The title of this exhibitions means nobody. This emphasises the empty clothing on the floor that once was a human. The mechanical grabber could connote God’s hand reaching out choosing the next life to come to heaven. Boltanski refers to it as ‘the finger of god’.

What associations does this work conjure up in your mind?

It almost instantly reminds me of the concentration camps in Germany. So many innocent people went though these camps so all these clothes on the floor represent the individuals that once wore these clothes. All being grabbed by a ‘hand’ which really emphasizes the dehumanisation.

Cumminds, 2010. Christian Boltanski: Personnes. In: The Guardian [online] At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jan/17/christian-boltanski-personnnes-paris-review [accessed 12/06/20]

Yayoi Kusama : Infinity Mirrored Room 1998

ART or DESIGN

TEMPORARY or PERMANENT

LARGE SCALE or SMALL SCALE

TRANSFORMING and/or DEFINING and/or FORMING

IMMERSIVE and/or DISTANT

PATTERN and/or COLOUR and/or REPETITION and/or SHAPE

Pattern, colour and repetition dominate her work. The dots help to create an immersive environment. She uses textile as a malleable substrate with colour and pattern to generate the obsessive environment she seeks. She also uses mirrors to create the illusion of the infinite repetition.

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec: Clouds 2008

ART or DESIGN

TEMPORARY or PERMANENT

LARGE SCALE or SMALL SCALE

TRANSFORMING and/or DEFINING and/or FORMING

IMMERSIVE and/or DISTANT

PATTERN and/or COLOUR and/or REPETITION and/or SHAPE

They have used textiles to create connectable pieces. These can be suspended from ceiling or connected to the wall and they can either be used to divide space or absorb sound. This piece can be both immersive and distant as you’re provided with separate segments that you must choose how to connect together and a visual piece viewed from a distance. I have selected both large and small scale because the individual pieces can come apart and you can create whichever size cloud you desire.

Marianne Straub: Moquette Textile 1970

ART or DESIGN

TEMPORARY or PERMANENT

LARGE SCALE or SMALL SCALE

TRANSFORMING and/or DEFINING and/or FORMING

IMMERSIVE and/or DISTANT

PATTERN and/or COLOUR and/or REPETITION and/or SHAPE

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Moquette is a woven textile comprised of loop and pile which makes the fabric very durable. Marianne Straub designed seating for public transport such as London buses and underground trains. Again i highlighted both immersive and distant because passengers sit close to them whilst the colour and patterns dominate more when viewed from across an empty carriage.

Travagliati, 2001. Kusama Mania. Atribune [online]. At: https://www.artribune.com/report/2011/11/kusama-mania/ [accessed 09/06/20]

Etherington, 2009. Clouds by Ronan and Erwan Bourroullec. In: Dezeen [online] At: https://www.dezeen.com/2009/01/16/clouds-by-ronan-and-erwan-bouroullec/ [accessed 09/06/20]

Moquette Textile, 1970. London Transport Museum [online] At: https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/photographs/page/1?&q=marianne+straub&sort=date&order=asc&field=STARTDATE [accessed 09/06/20]

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Surrounded Islands 1980 – 1983

ART or DESIGN

TEMPORARY or PERMANENT

LARGE SCALE or SMALL SCALE

TRANSFORMING and/or DEFINING and/or FORMING

IMMERSIVE and/or DISTANT

PATTERN and/or COLOUR and/or REPETITION and/or SHAPE

No artists have used textiles on the scale and with the same impact as Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Well-known for their wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris, Surrounded Islands sees textiles used on an extremely large scale to both define and cover aspects of the natural environment, in this case two islands.

I agree with the statement above, the scale of their pieces are incredible. 6.5 million square feet of floating pink woven polypropylene fabric covering the surface of the water and extending out as far as 200 feet from each island.

Wrapped Trees 1997 – 1998

"The 'wrapping' is NOT at all the common denominator of the works. What is really the common denominator is the use of fabric, cloth, textile. Fragile, sensuous and temporary materials which translate the temporary character of the works of art. 

The fabric used in this project looks very fragile, the use of this thin and light textile helps to hide and draw attention to the form inside. When it is a dull day, you can see the grey almost metallic fabric drape over the trees whereas when it is a sunny day, it really highlights the tree and branches inside. Again, this is another project that scale plays a big part. 178 trees were wrapped with 55,000 square metres of woven polyester fabric and 14.3 miles of rope.

Claude, C & J. [online] At: https://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/wrapped-trees?view=info [accessed 02/06/20]

Serpentine Sackler Gallery extension was commissioned 2009 – 2013. It consists of 2 parts; a converted early 19th century brick building with a 21st century textile based structure extended on the side which eventually opened in 2013. The main brick building was previously used for storing gunpowder, constructed in 1805 and continued to be used in military use until 1963. The new free flowing white canopy is a tensile structure built from glass-fibre woven textile creating an airy atmosphere.

“Idea here was to really prove that you can have these two worlds, which are the new and the old”

Zaha Hadid, dezeen.com

“Modern architecture has rediscovered the principle of the tent as an architectural form”

Susanne Fritz

Another example of architectural textiles is the Tahari Showroom in New York. Gisela Stromeyer created this textile-based showroom in 2011 on the 48th floor of the Grace Building in Midtown Manhattan. A white, transparent textile drapes on the walls and ceilings. The installation is fluid and the lighting in the back seem to open the tent-like space.

The DAR LUZ project one of the installations where the textile skin operated as a projection screen for staging a controlled light show. The temporary installation was constructed using standard roof batons screwed together with a hundred and fifty square metres of elastic, impregnated fabric stretched over the frame.

‘Tubaloon’ is the name given to the pneumatic membrane sculpture that was created for the Kongsberg jazz festival in Norway. Every year the Tubaloon is set up and dismantled, Ferrari selected the PVC-coated PVC-PES polyester membrane because of its hardwearing properties.

Many more artists/architects are building with textiles and it is becoming increasingly important.

Fritz, S. (2011) ‘The Very Fabric of Architecture: Textile Use in Construction’. Architonic [online] At: https://www.architonic.com/en/story/susanne-fritz-the-very-fabric-of-architecture-textile-use-in-construction/7000625 [accessed 29/05/2020]

For this part, I was given the task to research a designer/artist/maker whose work I was drawn to. In my workbook, it presents me with a designer/maker called Donna Wilson whose ‘Billy Broccoli‘ caught my eye. It’s simple yet amazing.

What is their craft and how do they approach it in their work?

Donna Wilson is a textile designer, whose work focuses mainly on textile-based products such as animals and strange creatures. She uses a variety of handcrafted techniques such as felting, sewing, knitting, wrapping and so on. Wilson produces most of her work in a busy studio in East London, using knitting machines for the panels of yarn and every product is assembled and embroidered by hand making “never two exactly the same”. She uses lambswool that comes from sheep in the Geelong area of Australia and it is spun in a 200-year-old mill in the heart of Yorkshire.

Do they adhere to the Slow Design? To what extent does this allow them to take risks, experiments and innovate?

I believe Donna Wilson adheres to some Slow Design principles in her work because her work is handmade with very little use of machines. She creates her work using lambswool from a farm in the Australia but the wool is spun in the UK. The yarn used to create her products are Oeko-Tex certified, meaning that it is free from any harmful dyes. She ‘hates the idea of waste’ so any offcuts from fabric are re-used. Wilson has many other products within her company; her cotton homeware and accessories are made in Portugal. She works with a traditional family-run business who are known for their fine jacquard weaves. This adheres to the Slow Design principles because although “I could have gone down the factory route, but I wanted to keep as much control as possible,” (Wilson, 2010), she continued to make her creatures in her busy studio in London.

Is the story or the story behind their work important? Why?

Her story started in rural Aberdeenshire where she lived on a farm with her parents and in her shed she would create sculptures from twigs and make mud pies. She soon developed a love for nature and wildlife and knitted her first ever creature at Royal College of Art. From there she relocated to a busy studio in East London. Donna Wilson has been designing, manufacturing and distributing her luxurious lambswool products since 2003. I think her story is important because her whole ethos is based on creating work that people will connect with and there has been an increasing desire to know more about the person behind the product as well as the product itself. Her story behind her work is important too because not only does she hand-make her products with natural materials; she also designs her products to be recycled at the end of their use.

Do you value ‘craft’ and craftmanship? Why or why not?

I value craftmanship a lot and I think that’s down to myself and my family being quite crafty people. I’ve grown up around art, my nan has a whole room just for her materials and equipment. My mum is always crocheting so it’s very inspiring for me. I have picked up skills with many different mediums through school and outside school such as drawing, painting, lino printing, screen-printing, textiles, weaving, sewing and so much more. I have recently been doing more drawing and started embroidery. When you pick up all these skills, the attention to detail is increased. I am a bit of a perfectionist so if I don’t like how something has turned out then I will restart. But yes, I value craft.

I found Donna Wilson’s opinion of craftmanship on her website –

Importance of craftsmanship – It’s fair to say Donna’s studio wouldn’t be where it is today without its network of talented craftspeople who help to bring her products to life. Keeping UK manufacturing and crafts alive has long been an important part of Donna’s work and she is proud to say that each Donna Wilson product is, wherever possible, made in the UK by people who take great pride and care in their work.

Is there room for craft in a modern society?

Yes I believe there is room in modern society for craft. Craft is important because it brings out creativity and develops the imagination. It teaches you the value of things, not necessarily the price of the product but the time and effort gone into crafting it.

Notes on Justin McGuirk’s article ‘The art of craft: the rise of the designer-maker’:

Do you believe there is a demand for hand-made objects and work? Why do you think that consumer seek out these qualities in the objects they buy?

I believe many people are demanding more hand-made products but not so much so that it will change peoples views or the way things are made. Consumers seek these qualities in objects to reveal the story behind it, “re-asserting the value of handmade over machine-made”. I would say that handmade products are becoming more and more popular nowadays than before because everyone is always looking for something different.

Do you think the desire for hand-made products is based on a romantic perception of the hand-made and a sense of ‘post-industrial nostalgia for the pre-industrial’? Why or why not?

I think there are a group of people who demand handmade products from a romantic perception because making something by hand for someone else is quite a romantic gesture. “We romanticise the handmade because we yearn for quality, not quantity”. More people prefer one good quality products over ten naff products.

Do you feel that hand-made products are viewed as luxury or value-added products ? How do hand-made items compare with mass-produced items, in terms of their value, life cycle, cost and ethics?

These handmade products are viewed as a luxury because the item/object is one of a kind. For example, if someone had carved a table from scratch and it was a treasured inherited item the life-cycle would be extended because it is crafted to last for a long time. Whereas if you had a mass-produced item like a table then these items are produced for profit whether it lasts long or not. Essentially the handmade is priceless because the time and energy gone into crafting it but more importantly the meaning behind the item.

Reflect on any hand-made item you own . Can you remember why you were drawn to it? Did the fact that it was hand-made make it feel special or did you buy it just because you liked the design? How did the price compare?

The handmade items I have chosen to focus on is this glass paper weight that I bought from Langham Glass when i was younger, a place that my grandma took me too. It’s a little workshop where a few people make things from glass such as paperweights, vases, glass sculptures. Theres an area where you can sit and watch them make these products and even request one to be made for you. I picked this particular one because its really pretty and it will always remind me of my Grandma. Being handmade will always make it special because no two can be the same.

I own a lot of handmade items because my family is very creative. I created a piece of embroidery and I really liked the way it looks when it was finished. It feels like an accomplishment when completing the last few stitches. When I was younger, my mum made me a hat and scarf from crochet and I’ve been wearing it ever since! I was especially drawn to it mainly because it was a gift from my mum but also seeing her taking time to create it for me meant even more. Its a very special item to me because its handmade by my mother but also theres only one of these in the world and I have it.

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I have chosen to look at bamboo toothbrushes. Bamboo is the worlds fastest naturally renewing resource. There are many different companies that sell bamboo toothbrushes, however, I have come across a company on my Instagram that intrigues me. www.ecobrushearth.com make not only bamboo toothbrushes but many other products for your daily needs. They use Mao bamboo so it’s panda cruelty free and the raw materials are harvested in China. It contains naturally-occurring antimicrobial agents so there is no need for fertilisers or pesticides during its cultivation. The handle of the toothbrush is 100% biodegradable but the bristles are not, they can be pulled out by pliers. The duration of a bamboo toothbrush is recommended 2 to 3 months by oral health professionals. However long it takes to biodegrade depends on the environment’s conditions such as warm, cold, wet, dry. It usually takes 5 to 10 years to fully break down but if buried horizontally it would only take 3 years. When composting at home, it can be much quicker as you can break the toothbrush into small pieces. No new materials are needed to recycle making this very sustainable. This product works well in its intended context because it does the job its meant to and it can be recycled or biodegrade.

Knitting and weaving is still the most efficient and successful means of creating sufficient quantities of constructed textiles. Printing textiles allows us to apply further aesthetics to alter the qualities of the constructed textiles.

Stages of textile product life cycle

1. Agriculture/ Raw fibre production – the cultivation and harvest of the crop
2. Ginning – to clear the cotton of seeds
3. Spinning – the process of converting short lengths of fibre into thread
4. Weaving – to interlace threads and form a fabric
5. Processing – to treat or prepare by a series of actions
6. Stitching – the act of a person that stitches onto fabric
7. Distribution/ Retail – the delivery of an item/ the sale of goods
8. Use/ Consumption and End of Life – the using up of the goods

Exercise 1 – Sustainability

Sustainability is hard to define. I would say to have something sustainable, it should be durable to allow the lifespan to be lengthened. To support rather than harm. I think sustainability is about how you use the subject in a way to protect and prolong the life.

The Dictionary definition says:

• the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level. “the sustainability of economic growth”

• avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance. “the pursuit of global environmental sustainability”

In what contexts is sustainability an issue?

In textiles, I believe sustainability is important for the protection of the environment. Certain materials are used to address how the processes used to make clothing impact the world around us. These ‘eco-textiles’ can be blend of natural plant-based fibres such as organic cotton, hemp or bamboo.

Environmentally speaking, some things aren’t sustainable. For example, the top issues that are affecting the world is plastic pollution from plastic waste reaching the ocean, water shortages caused by climate change and air pollution from vehicles and factories. However, it isn’t all that bad because there are many factors that contribute to the environment that are sustainable such as wind turbines, solar panels, reducing household energy etc.

Industry speaking, I would say there are many issues in the industry when it comes to sustainability. A lot of things can go to waste in the industry and most of it isn’t recycled. Also the rate in which items and objects are produced questions how these things are sustainable.

Sustainability is a major issue within the waste industry because landfills are forever increasing and it pollutes the earth. People are doing more to recycle where they can to help stop the damaging affects that landfills have on the earth.

When researching these, I soon realised that sustainability comes down to one thing at the end of the day, and that’s the earth. Everything we need it right here on earth such he natural fibres to make up clothing.

How do you think sustainability might be addressed in relation to the production and consumption of textiles and other manufactured products?

Every step in the textiles chain focuses on different aspects of sustainability.

• production factors, including water and energy consumption
• availability of sustainable raw materials
• effects of waste production
• use of chemicals including dyes and coatings
• health risks for textile workers and consumers
• animal welfare (procurement of wool)

The materials used for textiles not only determine the structure of the value chain and supply chain but also possible recycling. However, the more materials and chemicals that are used, the more difficult it is to be recycled.

Climatex is an innovative technology company for sustainable and recyclable textiles. They pay attention to recycling, environment, health and energy in the design of its products. Products such as upholstery fabrics return to the cycle of production, consumption and renewal after their useful life.

Thread is a textile company that produces recycled polyester from plastic bottles.

Information from lead-innovation.com.

Textiles leaves the largest water footprint on the planet. Large textile producers and users such as Adidas and H&M are investing in technology to use less water and reduce the pollutants released. Instead of water, Adidas’ supplier uses compressed and pressurised carbon dioxide as the agent to disperse dye within polyester fabric. “Adidas claims using CO2 is a safe and environmentally-friendly option because the gas is contained and can be used repeatedly without the risk of any emissions.” (Kaye, 2013)

Kaye, L. (Aug 12, 2013) Clothing to dye for: the textile sector must confront water risks. At: The Guardian [online] https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/dyeing-textile-sector-water-risks-adidas