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Research: Mono-Material Library x Schoenkwarteir | Sophia Fenlon + Stephanie Rolph

Mono-Material Library: Designers Sophia Fenlon + Stephanie Rolph

What is the Mono-Material Library?
The Mono-material Library aims to showcase how mono-material design, created with a single fibre such as wool, can achieve diverse textures, forms, and functions through engineered use of woven structures.

This innovative approach shifts focus from selecting fibres based on their inherent properties, to engineering, through woven structure, functionality and transforming a fabrics mechanical properties.

As an emergent area of design, mono-material designing responds directly to the climate emergency by prioritising material or product recyclability or biodegradability at the end of life. This project has evolved from the Designers shared interest in the role textiles can play in achieving Net Zero.

Mono-Material Library x Schoenenkwartier
This collaboration challenged conventional approaches to woven design and shoemaking through an interdisciplinary partnership. This process driven project explores how jacquard and dobby weaving can be used to create mono-material footwear uppers. Focusing on the ability to engineer multi-layer woven textiles on- loom and then transform them through finishing techniques to create functional footwear components. Through an in depth exploration of woven structure, the project investigates how to strategically engineer areas of flexibility, rigidity, stretch and cushioning where required within the uppers.

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Grants: Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers

 Theo Moorman Trust

Applications for grants are invited from weavers living and working in the UK. Those who have recently completed higher education need to have two and a half years working experience before applying.

Grants are available to enable weavers to purchase equipment and materials; take a sabbatical to reassess the creative nature of their work; pursue a specific project; or develop in any other way approved by the Trustees.

The closing date for applications is 1 February 2024

Criteria and application forms are available here

Email application and good quality images to the Trust’s administrator: email here

With thanks to the Theo Moorman Trust and Jacy Wall for the  detail image and text.

Anita Sarkezi | Weave Designer & Award Winner

Winner of the Weavers’ Company Award at New Designers

Anita Sarkezi was born to working-class Slovenian migrant parents in Sweden and returned to Slovenia during her school years. She has since then lived in several European countries, moving to Scotland in 2018.

Sarkezi’s textile design practice is motivated and informed by her Slavic cultural background. Her work is grounded in the interwoven histories of rural material culture and post-colonialism in Central and Eastern Europe, where she questions the traditional use of floral patterns as national symbols.

Her practice explores the relationship between organic and geometric shapes. Using the TC2 digital loom, Sarkezi constructs an imaginary space consisting of personal ornaments and motifs, as well as bold and gradient uses of colour. This serves as a visual metaphor for the flux of movement and migration and an outlet for her personal narrative as a migrant.

Sarkezi gathers visual information through wandering, catching and recording glimpses of nature in urban centres, then incorporating them into a new reality utilising digital and analogue ways of working.

Sarkezi’s approaches to drawing, colour and design exploration are intuitive and chaotic yet neatly edited at the end of the process. They’re all intertwined throughout the creative journey, and she feels colour exploration can end up in a drawing and design exploration can become a drawing. Form does not exist without colour. Each drawing, colour and design exploration has been collaged from diverse sources, aiming to create something that is ‘original’ and is an expression of her own identity and heritage.

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Exhibition: The Jacquard Project | Hannah Robson

In March 2023, Sunny Bank Mills will present a unique project of collaborative work led by weaver and artist Hannah Robson. Hannah has created a series of dynamic woven textiles using an industrial jacquard loom at Bradford College.

These striking fabrics have been developed in partnership with four local artists: a sculptor, a jeweller, a weaver and a mixed-media artist.

Hannah describes her motivation for the project:
‘I wanted to work with other artists to open up the process of weaving, which can be very technical and hard to access outside of an industrial setting. Weaving is a magical process that offers infinite possibilities in terms of design, colour and surface. It has been stimulating for me to see how each collaboration has unfolded and the results are distinct and surprising.’

In 2021, Hannah began working with an industrial loom that needed some attention at Bradford College. Through The Jacquard Project she has coaxed the machine back to life with the help of local weavers and loom tuners, who generously advised her, replaced parts and serviced the machine.

Some of these conversations have been captured in a fascinating film created by Karanjit Panesar, intercut with footage of the action of the loom as it weaves, revealing the atmosphere of making cloth and sharing skills.
Link to film: https://youtu.be/G-blWyqmiBw

The Jacquard Project celebrates the weaving heritage of West Yorkshire through the process of creative exchange and collaboration. These new textiles have a contemporary and conceptual edge, presented as large panels on wooden frames. The cloths carry evidence of the making process – the experimentation and exploration, colour and scale variations, yarn testing, and the glitches of the loom. Continue reading →

Awards: Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST)

The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) awards scholarship and apprenticeship funding of up to £18,000 to talented and aspiring craftspeople working in a broad range of skills, from farriery and jewellery design, to silversmithing, dry stone walling, glassblowing cheese maturing, sculpture and more. Their next application round is open 10 January – 14 February 2022 and they are looking for more talented applicants.

QEST celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2020 and since 1990 has awarded over £5million to 650 individuals working in over 130 different crafts.They define craft broadly and welcome applications from all areas including rural skills, contemporary craft, conservation, luthiery and much more. A directory of all their alumni can be seen on their website, along with more details on how to apply  (They have two application rounds each year – in January and July). Continue reading →

Funded PhD: Royal College of Art Textiles

Woman stripping bark from a nettle plantA Funded PhD with RCA Textiles, enabled by funding from the late Susi Dunsmore’s foundation.

About the project
The aim of this project is to develop innovative new pathways for the textile-led social development work of Susi Dunsmore. Dunsmore’s textile practice-led approach to community development was holistic in its understanding of the place of the nettle plant in the local environment and culture.

The Nepalese Giant Nettle provides one of the longest bast fibres in the world and is traditionally used in weaving and knitting by the women of communities in the mountainous region of East Nepal. Woven, knitted and other constructed textile products provide supplementary income to subsistence farming. Susi Dunsmore worked with these textile makers and introduced new weave and knit structures, fibre blends and product types to improve income generation through textile making.

Dunsmore’s approach to social impact through co-design integrated an understanding and respect for the lives of the female makers. Her work provides a model for social impact projects through textile making. This research project will simultaneously model and extend Dunsmore’s approach addressing urgent and contemporary production concerns.

Text and image: with thanks RCA

Grants: The Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers | Alison Morton Memorial Awards

Grant: Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers
The Theo Moorman Trust
for Weavers will be making their biennial grants to weavers during March 2022. Grants of between £500 and £5000 are awarded to younger weavers in the early stages of their careers who show potential and commitment as well as to more experienced weavers for a particular project or for time out to develop their work.

The Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers aims to encourage and support weavers in the United Kingdom to enjoy artistic freedom so that they may contribute to the development of handweaving and the education of future weavers.

Application deadline: 1 March 2022

Further details and an application form is available to download from their website  or by contacting admin@theomoormantrust.org.uk

Alison Morton Memorial Awards
In 2022 the Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers will be making two additional awards in memory of Alison Morton (1946 – 2021). Alison was one of the most dedicated loom weavers of her generation, latterly renowned for her beautiful understated linen cloths and hangings. For the last fourteen years of her life, she was a Trustee of the Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers, a role to which she brought great commitment, as well as invaluable humour and experience.

Weaving residencies at Ruthin Craft Centre 12 – 26 March 2022
Application deadline: 5 January 2022
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Job Opportunity: BFTT | Dash + Miller R&D Project Lead

This post is an exciting opportunity for a Post Graduate, or Post-Doctoral Researcher (or equivalent demonstrable industry/research experience) to work as the Research & Development (R&D) Project Lead, facilitating a novel collaborative project, between UAL and Dash & Miller.

You will be employed by the University of the Arts London but predominately working remotely, with some travel within the UK and on-site delivery at Dash & Miller’s premises in Bristol.

The Business of Fashion, Textiles & Technology (BFTT) Partnership is a multi-million pound initiative lead by UAL aimed at accelerating the growth of fashion, textile and technology sector through collaborative R&D partnerships and projects.

Dash & Miller have been awarded funding within the BFTT R&D SME Support Programme. The principal aim of the project is to develop R&D around digital textiles to aid design and communication throughout the supply chain.

They are looking for an individual with flexibility to work at sites in Bristol and remotely, with a thorough knowledge of the digital fashion and textiles landscape, as well as the circularity and sustainability opportunities available within the sector.

You will have a PG qualification in the area of fashion and textiles with a focus on the application of digital within the sector, or equivalent research and/or industry experience.

You will have experience of managing textile supply chains from yarn to finishing, and ideally a knowledge of digital product development within the fashion context gained through research and/or relevant R&D industry work. Continue reading →

Call for Entries: 2022 Experimental Weaving Residency

The Unstable Design Lab is excited to host a call for entries for their second Experimental Weaving Residency. This funded residency will take place in winter/spring 2022 and is focused on developing experimental textile structures and concepts in close collaboration with engineers and scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The Unstable Design Lab is hosting its experimental weaving residency with the goal of developing new techniques and open-source resources that can co-evolve fiber arts and engineering practice.

The chosen resident will work with the Unstable Design Lab, as well as researchers from the University of Colorado, to create a series of samples inspired by challenges currently faced by engineering researchers. For example, shape weaving techniques for creating form-fitting and/or compression garments for counter-pressure spacesuits, integration of power harvesting diodes, compostable or easily reusable textile structures for zero-waste manufacturing, or structures that dynamically fold and unfold to support mechanical structures or soft robotics (to name a few, but not all, possible spaces for experimentation).

Applicants should be open-minded, curious, and above all deeply knowledgeable about woven structures and their behaviours. No knowledge of computer science, electronics, or engineering is required for participation. Continue reading →

Company Profile: AKHL

AKHL was founded by Akhil Nagpal in 2019.

AKHL is defined by its commitment to innovation, experimentation and the crafting of evocative pieces of fashion by contemporising traditional Indian handcrafting and handweaving techniques.

Essential to its designs are distinctive and complex textiles, engineered using unusual and often upcycled materials, employing a wide range of processes including hand weaving, traditional Indian hand embroidery, hand printing, applique and spectrum dyeing.

Ultimately, these signature textiles, in conjunction with handwoven and new age fabrics, are meticulously tailored into inventive and evocative luxury womenswear.

Since its founding, AKHL has been a recipient of various awards and honours. It showcased its debut collection at Lakme Fashion Week SS20 as the winner of the prestigious Gen Next Competition and won The Grazia Young Fashion Award in 2021.

It has also been awarded the curated title ‘Black Sheep’ on Not Just A Label, given to the most innovative and striking designers on the platform.

AKHL has been featured on the ‘Label Alert’ segment in Harper’s Bazaar India and Grazia India as well as in various other editorials by leading Indian fashion publications including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia and Cosmopolitan.

Reflektor SS21 Collection
AKHL SS21 collection has been visually inspired by interactions and distortions of light and colour. The studio has  studied these interactions in highly-engineered and uniquely processed reflective installation artworks by Olafur Eliasson and James Turnell, as well as in softer, yet equally compelling, natural reflective surfaces.

These vivid colour and light visual studies helped them develop new-age handwoven and hand-embroidered textiles as well as sharply-cut sculptural silhouettes, all of them ultimately culminating into an innovative and evocative collection of modern ensembles.

The most dominant textile in this collection has been their handwoven/hand-embroidered silk-raffia mesh. This textile is first meticulously woven on a handloom, it has a raw silk warp and a raffia weft.

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