Warp Factor 09
wooden carpet, Elisa Strozyk
The Textile Futures Group from Central St Martin’s School of Art shows its latest work at the Lethaby Gallery until 18 December
The exhibition is called Warp Factor 09, and the Trekky title is meant to suggest a sense of speed and travel. ‘It’s all about connections, distance and relationships between different fields’, says Anne Smith, Dean of the School of Fashion and Textiles at St Martins and exhibition director. It showcases the extraordinary, and often ground-breaking, textiles made by the Textile Futures group, which was set up to look at new forms of fabrics. It’s all about innovation and boundary pushing, much of which is achieved by looking at how other fields – science, medicine, craft, technology – can feed into that of textiles. Smith explains: ‘A lot the work is born from collaboration with other disciplines as this generates some really exciting new directions.’
Examples of some of the more surprising research projects include Jenny Tillotson’s LuppDupp Fluidic Fabric developed using nanotechnology to create textiles embedded with scent delivery systems – one of her products handily responds to a mosquito’s whine to release mosquito repellent. Look out also for Suzanne Lee’s Bio Couture jacket, made out of a new textile she’s developed using a cellulose bacteria skin grown on the surface of tea and Luke Brooks’ HolyDay clothes incorporating basket-weaving techniques.
www.warpfactor09.com
www.csm.arts.ac.uk
