Friday 16 May 2008

21st century textiles symposium



This symposium was held as part of the Stroudwater festival on 10 May 2008. Marie O’Mahony talked about hoe she collaborates with architects and builders. She described her latest project Hitec- lotec and described various projects including the Sydney camouflage project using ‘lace’ curtains; a dress made using fermented wine; and a new synthetic fabric made from mouse connective tissue and human cells. The new flexibles was the title of Sarah Braddock Clark’s talk and she showed us samples of new materials. Rebecca Earley discussed textiles and the environment and described the development of upcycling to rebrand recycled clothes.

Sally Freshwater described her site specific work. She works with tensile membranes and fabrics under tension. She told us about some of her projects including the arrivals concourse at Gatwick and the Poole Lighthouse. She collaborates with Architen based in Bristol who make the tensile fabric structures for her and hang the pieces. She gave lots of advice on what to consider when working on a collaborative project in a public site.

Jennifer Shellard talked about artists who use light in their work, including James Durell, Dan Flavin and Antony McCaul. Jennifer uses weave structures for revealing and concealing. She incorporates transparent fluorescent yarns into her work and uses UV light to excite them. These projects are difficult to document so she has been learning how to video and film them.

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