YEAR

people process BOOK products TEXTIEL LAB 2011

Yearbook TextielLab 2011 YEAR

people process BOOK products TEXTIEL LAB 2011 Contents

7 19 Pushing the I Commissions Boundaries from Industry and Institutions 9 Driving Innovation, 59 Enabling Experiment II Independent Projects 11 Index People and 77 Projects Yearbook III Commissions TextielLab 2011 from the Audax Textielmuseum 13 Tilburg Other Designers and Artists who 91 worked at the IV Educational TextielLab in 2011 Programmes at the TextielLab 14 TextielLab 105 V Young Talent 16 Colophon

4 5 Hebe Verstappen Pushing the In order to better fulfil the role of international knowledge Boundaries institution there is plenty of time for the development of talent. We are increasingly working together with diverse academies in Europe and we invite the best students to work in our museum for an extended period of time. This structured cooperation with international educational institutions will be expanded further in the future.

In recent years there has been an obvious shift towards projects on a larger scale, for interiors and other purposes, in the Lab. In order to live up to our ambitions it is necessary for us to bring about a focus among the In the autumn of 2011, the TextielLab staged a presen- different techniques. Such a focus would impel us to tation entitled ‘Crafts’ together with four other workshops add greater depth to the quality of the projects. Engaging during the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. We demon- in these bigger projects and proactively approaching strated that in this day and age there are many novel prospective international clients will therefore take ways to integrate craft into the contemporary practice of priority in the future. designers, and that we have an important part to play in this. We make it possible for designers, architects, artists We therefore continue to search for projects and partners and students to master a unique technical skill in a short that strengthen and challenge us: allow us to extend that time and we provide continuous development of the craft. invitation to you. The combination of Museum, Lab and Innovation is a second core value that the TextielLab Academy in a single institution is unique, and I would like considers to be of paramount importance. One touchstone to thank our partners. We want to foster the cooperation for projects that are developed here is that they are with these national and international enterprises and innovative in terms of concept, applied technology and institutions even more in the future, thus building on materials. Here I would like to give a special mention an international knowledge network as well as offering to two successful projects. They demonstrate the things a platform. we are able to do in the TextielLab by using special yarns, the most innovative textile machines, and knowledge Hebe Verstappen, and derring-do. For both projects, experimenting with Creative Director TextielLab, previously unused, groundbreaking techniques and the 21 December 2011 search for novel possibilities with materials and finishing was essential.

The ‘dressing up’ of The Exchange, the new fashion hotel in Amsterdam, in textiles was a unique project in which the expertise and prowess of all the TextielLab’s staff was used to optimum advantage. The development of a 110-metre-long wall hanging designed by the prestigious OMA architecture firm was another milestone. Both projects kept us busy for weeks on end and we produced an untold quantity of samples. The specialized textile library and the exhibitions in the museum were used as a fount of inspiration. We have thus been able to show what makes our modus operandi and our institution so unique: the whole museum functions as a knowledge institution that offers opportunities for the development of personal projects in the TextielLab.

The success of these and all the other projects that pass in review in this publication is partly due to international enterprises such as spinning mills, software companies and machine manufacturers. During our visits to the famous ITMA machine fair in Barcelona and the Pitti Filati yarn fair in Florence, the essential role that these partners play became clear to us: they, too, work for days on end with the same passion on the development of new equipment and materials for the production of exceptional textiles, which the TextielLab can then employ to develop new fabrics. These manufacturers are also constantly searching out the boundaries of the possible, and without these partners our projects would be impossible to realize.

7 Pushing the Boundaries Christine de Baan Driving Innovation, Several threads within the DutchDFA programme connect Enabling Experiment to form a framework that should make the Textielmuseum (Excerpt of the opening speech a key player within it: for the ‘i FABRIC. EUROPEAN – The importance of international collaboration and TALENT’ exhibition) knowledge exchange, for the creation of a common sustainable future; we simply need each other to survive; – The importance of connecting crafts and traditional techniques to contemporary concepts and innovative materials and technology; – The rediscovery of crafts in the west, and the need to reinvent craft – while safeguarding local culture in, for If you simply google on ‘made in collaboration with Audax example, Asia; Textielmuseum Tilburg’, you will find a surprising amount – The need to formulate contemporary identities in rapidly of inspiring projects that were created with the help of the growing and transforming ‘new’ economies: identities Textielmuseum, the fantastic resources of its TextielLab, that do not deny local cultural tradition, but at the same and the expert guidance of its curators and staff. Quite time are not disconnected from global culture, identities a few were already known to me, but in the case of some that will be expressed through clothing as much as of the most iconic pieces, especially the older ones, through home decoration – this is a real issue, seemingly I never even realized that this was how they came about. frivolous – fashion, lifestyle, styling – yet essential for I think this is because the museum has been extremely a sense of one’s place in the world. modest about its own achievements. Tucked away in rural Tilburg, over the past ten years it has, quietly and The Dutch are good at these questions. There is a recent unobtrusively, become a major cultural force: tradition of the rediscovery and reinvention of craft, with the Tichelaar ceramics factory, for example, as well as – Driving innovation, enabling experiment, connecting with Thomas Eyck as a commissioner, Droog Design tradition to the technological avant-garde; as one of the initiators of a conceptual design trend and – Introducing designers, artists, and architects to new the Textielmuseum as some of the most important players. machines and materials; The Textielmuseum’s recent collaborations with industrial – Introducing industry to designers and artists as well partners and designers in this field have led to highly as experimental techniques; innovative and commercially interesting products. – Creating a whole new world of objects for use, or for contemplation; Institutions for design education play a key role in the – Educating whole generations of designers from all kinds sector’s internationalization, and therefore in the DutchDFA of disciplines in the myriad possibilities of textile programme. They have a tradition of international orienta- techniques (I will come back to this issue of education); tion and exchange, and a focus on the future, in both their – And, through the wide range of experiments and subject matter and their output: new generations of collaborations, the museum staff has become a rich designers. and layered source of knowledge. The importance of For years already, the Textielmuseum has been running a real knowledge, based on skills and research, experiment collaborative programme with Dutch design schools such and experience, cannot be overestimated. as the Amsterdam Fashion Institute and Design Academy Eindhoven. In 2008, on its own initiative, the Textiel- For us within the DutchDFA programme, the Audax museum started a programme called the European Textile Textielmuseum Tilburg is one of the great assets of the Trainee project, building up collaborations with academies Netherlands as a design country – and one of which in Bergen (Norway), Helsinki (Finland), Halle (Germany) I think we are not making nearly enough use. The Dutch and Ghent (Belgium). Some of the results are included Design Fashion Architecture (DutchDFA) programme aims in the ‘i FABRIC’ exhibition, which in itself shows the to strengthen the international position of Dutch design, strength of the network that the museum has developed fashion and architecture, by building long-lasting with academies outside the Netherlands over the past international partnerships, while addressing issues few years. that are facing today’s world through design. The four-year strategic programme (2009 – 2012) takes Christine de Baan, place in a selection of focus countries: India, China, Programme Director, DutchDFA Germany and Turkey. It connects cultural, diplomatic (Dutch Design Fashion Architecture) and economic agendas, while building reputations, Tilburg, 23 September 2011 networks, and business.

8 9 Driving Innovation, Enabling Experiment Index People and Karolina Piech 124 Projects Yearbook Gerrit Rietveld Academy 92 TextielLab 2011 Rowena Rutten 118 Makiko Shinoda 126 Mara Skujeniece 86 Willemijn van der Sloot 123 Irene Alvarez 70 Studio FormaFantasma 79 Hotel The Exchange 20 Studio Jo Meesters 69 Zara Atelj 64 Studio WM 63 Sarah Barkmeijer 48 Annika Syrjämäki 66 Martine Bastings 114 Annelys de Vet 32 Maria Blaisse 74 Vincent Vulsma 72 Design Academy Jasmijn Wester 122 Eindhoven (DAE) 100 Kiyoshi Yamamoto 112 Designstudio Robert Zandvliet 60 Lotte van Laatum 36 Eva Dunis 106 European Textile Trainees (ETT) 96 Britt de Groot 108 Hayon Studio 38 Linda de Jong 110 Bas Kosters Studio 88 Diana Lebel 116 Mercure Cultuurprijs 46 Justine de Moriamé 120 Müller Van Tol 28 Tom Nijhuis 109 Otobong Nkanga 44 OMA 50 Painted 82 Karin Peulen 30

10 11 Index People and Projects Other Designers Elise van Mourik and Artists who Emilie Pallard worked at the Piet Paris TextielLab in 2011 Alet Pilon Anouk van Ranst Lon Robbé Gino Saccone Laurence Aëgerter Alexander van Slobbe By Borre Spijkers & Spijkers Sonja Bäumel Studio Job Walter Van Beirendonck Studio Wieki Somers Mariëlle van den Bergh JANTAMINIAU Barbara Broekman Natalie Taylor Hil Driessen Anaïs Tondeur Maartje Elants Iris Toonen Thomas E. Creations Eugène van Veldhoven Jiri Evenhuis Jeroen Vinken William Fan Claire Vos Lizan Freijsen Elvira Vroomen Corné Gabriëls Sara Vrugt CG Doreen Westphal Studio Ruth ter Haar Freyke Hartemink Marianne van Heeswijk Mervi Hilvo Sarena Huizinga Elise Kim Lise Lefebvre Jan Koen Lomans Sander Lucas Made by Rens Jerry Meije

12 13 Other Designers and Artists TextielLab The TextielLab at the Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg is a unique knowledge centre that combines a highly specialized company that produces exceptional fabrics with an open atelier where experiment takes centre stage. Artists, promising students, and (inter)national designers are guided by product developers and discover the endless possibilities in the field of materials and computer-controlled, decorative and manual techniques.

14 TextielLab 15 TextielLab This yearbook is a publication of Audax All photographs are made by PARTNERS IN THE ‘WORKING TextielLab contact details Textielmuseum Tilburg, Founding employees of the TextielLab, unless MUSEUM’ PROJECT: Hebe Verstappen, member of Stichting Mommerskwartier otherwise stated in the list below: Creative Director TextielLab (the Mommers Quarter Foundation) Public sector partners [email protected] Joep Vogels (p.14, 15, 28, 60, 75, City of Tilburg (Chief partner) Volume 3 / 2011 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 87, 97, 98, 99) Province of Noord-Brabant Frank Teurlings, Date of publication: 2012 Mirjam Bleeker (p.20, 23) Managing Director TextielLab Hotel The Exchange (p.24) Funding bodies [email protected] Authors Milan Vermeulen (p.25) Mondriaan Foundation Hebe Verstappen, Roos Soetekouw (p.27) Stichting Vrienden Textielmuseum TextielAcademie contact details Suzan Rüsseler, Iris Kloppenburg (p.27) (Friends of the Textielmuseum Bea Nieuwenhuis, Caroline Boot, Bas van Tol (p.29) Foundation) Head of Education and Communication YEAR Bea Nieuwenhuis, Karin Peulen (p.31) [email protected] Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg Annelys de Vet (p.32, 33, 34, 35) Private sector partners Lotte van Laatum (p.36) Audax B.V. (Chief sponsor) Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg Christine de Baan, DutchDFA Benders&Stevens (p.37) Interpolis Verzekeringen N.V. Goirkestraat 96 Saskia van Gelder, DAE Moti (p.42, 43) FUJIFILM Manufacturing Europe B.V. P.O. Box 4265 Otobong Nkanga (p.45) CZ Actief in Gezondheid 5004 JG Tilburg (NL) Editor Christiaan Krop (p.46, 47) ABN AMRO Tel + 31 (0)13 536 74 75 people Hanneke Oosterhof, Sarah van de Boel (p.49) ING N.V. [email protected] Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg OMA (p.55,56, 57) Rabobank Tilburg en Omstreken www.textielmuseum.nl process ©OMA by Charlie Koolhaas (p.50) Van Lanschot Bankiers Translation (Dutch to English) Henk Geraedts (p.61) Bo.2 architectuur en stedenbouw Andrew May, Amsterdam Paul Schipper (p.62, 63) Van Eerd bv products Thijssen Translations, Tilburg Zara Atelj (p.64, 65) Van Puijenbroek textiel Nadine Stijns (p.66, 67, 68) Production coordinator Jo Meesters (p.69) Textile partners Floor Westerburgen, Yves de Brabander (p.70, 71) Lindauer DORNIER, Germany BOOK Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg G.J. van Rooij (p.72) NedSense NedGraphics B.V., Maria Blaisse (p.74) Netherlands Coordination of digital images Luisa Zanzani (p.81) Stoll, Germany Brechje Trompert, Saskia van Drimmelen (p.85) Van Wees UD and Crossply Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg David Koppelaar (p.88, 89) technology, Netherlands Joost Post (p.93, 94, 95) Graphic design DAE (p.101) Spinning mills Rob van Hoesel, Breda Eva Dunis (p.106) Zegna Baruffa www.baruffa.com Julien Lavigne (p.107) Ilaria, www.ilaria.it Printing Britt De Groot (p.108) Fuesers Garne GmbH, Drukkerij Gianotten, Tilburg Meinke Klein (p.109) www.fuesers.de Linda de Jong (p.110) Vimar 1991, www.vimar1991.com Binding Peter Stigter (p.111) Gruppo Tessile Industriale S.P.A., Boekbinderij van Mierlo, Nijmegen Femke Reijerman (p.112) www.gtispa.it Sidney Dobber (p.114, 115) Filati BE.MI.VA., www.bemiva.it Spine Diane Lebel (p.116, 117) Cariaggi, www.cariaggi.it TEXTIEL The spine of this publication was Rowena Rutten (p.118, 119) also designed by Rob van Hoesel Julie Calbert (p.120, 121) Education partners and was produced in the TextielLab. Jasmijn Wester (p.122) Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (Thanks Brechje and Frank!) Willemijn van der Sloot (p.123) (Academy Visual Arts and Design), Ninety per cent of the woven fabric Michael James O’Brien (p.124, 125) Tilburg, Netherlands is made of organic cotton and Design Academy Eindhoven, the fabric was embroidered using With special thanks to Netherlands glow-in-the-dark yarn. The bookmark Staff TextielLab AMFI (Amsterdam Fashion Institute), was knitted on an authentic circular Students and designers Netherlands knitting machine. The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design Print run Copenhagen, Denmark 1500 copies Aalto University School of Arts and Design Helsinki, Finland ISBN 978-90-70962-51-7 Burg Giebichenstein University of © Stichting Mommerskwartier / Art and Design, Halle, Germany LAB Mommers Quarter Foundation National Academy of the Arts Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg Bergen, Norway 2012 Royal Academy of Fine Art (KASK), Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this Sint-Lucas, Visual Arts, Belgium publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the museum.

For work by visual artists affiliated with a CISAC organization, the copyrights have been settled with 2011 Pictoright in Amsterdam. © c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2011

16 Colophon 17 Commissions from Industry and Institutions I Many artists and designers find their way to the TextielLab to work on commissions from industry and institutions. Here we present a selection of the outstanding projects realized in 2011.

18 19 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by The hotel is an initiative of Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy concept Otto Nan and Suzanne Oxenaar designers design students and/or alumni of the Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI), Amsterdam (NL) and Studio INA-MATT title Hotel The Exchange technique various techniques object category interior textiles location In an honest and bold testa- INA-MATT. At the TextielLab, ment to the fabric of the city, Ina Meijer, one ‘half’ of this Hotel The Exchange, Hotel The Exchange opened studio, developed fire-resistant Damrak 50, Amsterdam (NL) in Amsterdam on 3 December Trevira CS fabrics produced 2011. Devoid of any of the on a warp of Trevira CS that credits prescriptive conventions of was set up specifically for the Studio INA-MATT (design hotel concepts and experien- project. Matthijs van Cruijsen, ces, Hotel The Exchange – the other ‘half’ of Studio supervision) and Ingrid an initiative of Otto Nan and INA-MATT, supervised the AMFI Horsselenberg Suzanne Oxenaar – weaves students and alumni. The together fashion and architec- students arrived with colour (creative manager) ture. True to the spirit of past schemes, formal sketches projects by the pair – the Lloyd and material samples, which Hotel & Cultural Embassy and were translated into textiles in the Llove Hotel in Tokyo – their an intensive collaboration with perspective on creating a hotel the Lab’s project developers. is entirely different. Nan and The weave structures, in Oxenaar’s concept of a ‘hotel combination with yarns made with rooms dressed as models’ of copper foil, rubber and allows each room to be treated mohair, are extraordinary from with the same independence a technical perspective. The as a human model. In collabo- young designers could choose ration with AMFI, eight students from the most recent yarn

and alumni were selected to collections from spinning mills, Eighties Room by Roos Soetekouw drive the vision for the hotel which the TextielLab’s staff Dressed to impress in a bold and fun 1980s rooms. They created designs had spotted during the Pitti retro style, this room was outfitted with an oversized, black-and-white patterned sweater and using fashion metaphors. Filati yarn show in Florence. a tight-fitting tube skirt in a rainbow of colours. Before ‘dressing up’ began, All the manufactured textiles Both the graphic knitwear, in white cotton with fabric designs took shape under were then impregnated by an some Lurex blended in and a black elastic yarn, and the rainbow weave, were crafted in the tutelage of Dutch Studio external partner for fire safety. the TextielLab at Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg. The 1980s styling is not just a fashion fad: Hotel The Exchange actually occupies three original buildings: one dating back to the 17th century, one to the 1970s and one to the 1980s.

20 Hotel The Exchange 21 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions ‘The project is a unique showpiece for the TextielLab, in which the knowledge and skill of the product developers were deployed to optimum effect. Many new yarns were used, plenty of time was taken to carry out tests, the designs are of a high quality and the fabrics also meet all the technical norms for a semi-public building. It would be a good thing if this project can show the textile industry what is possible in the Netherlands by using a healthy mix of bravura, experimentation and knowledge.’ Hebe Verstappen, Creative Director of the TextielLab

Mattress Softtone Deluxe by Roos Soetekouw The essence of a hotel room is that it offers you the comfort of a great bed away from home. Designer Roos Soetekouw took the mattress as her inspiration and turned it inside out, dissecting it into its vulgar parts and from there looking for the sheer beauty and strength of the materials. The young designer’s desire to literally get inside the mattress led her to develop a Gobelin- or Damast-like fabric, in which she upholstered another room using a meticulous traditional lathing technique. The precious fabric was custom-woven by the Textielmuseum in two different colour schemes using an experimental mix of yarns that includes paper yarn, viscose, cotton, mohair and gold Lurex.

22 Hotel The Exchange 23 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions Hebe Verstappen interviews Suzanne Oxenaar, one of the initiators and owners of Hotel The Exchange, Amsterdam

Amsterdam, 1 September 2011

In between a street-level kebab shop and a French fries here, and that excites, that presents possibilities and stall lies the unassuming narrow alleyway entrance to the inspires. That is something I’ve always had in my work, hotel, an innovative amalgamation of three historic buildings. also when I was an adviser for art in public space. Hotel The Exchange veers away from being pigeonholed You ended up visiting a prison or an old people’s home – as a ‘fashion hotel’. It embraces the existing neighbourhood that’s something completely different to a museum energy of the Damrak, a pedestrian artery running from context, which calls for a totally different approach. Amsterdam’s Central Station to the Dam Square. In collaboration with the AMFI fashion academy, eight students How did the idea for The Exchange arise? Is it true and alumni were selected to drive the vision for the hotel that you made a pitch for hotels on the banks of the rooms. They created designs using fashion metaphors. River Amstel as part of a bigger project? Before ‘dressing up’ began, fabric designs took shape under We came up with the idea of establishing all kinds of small the tutelage of Dutch Studio INA-MATT in cooperation with hotels in Amsterdam. We asked the City of Amsterdam’s the TextielLab. ‘hotel loods’ about potential locations. The Damrak, as one of the possible spots, appealed to us immediately. Suzanne, you’re the co-founder and proprietor of the Right in the heart of Amsterdam… We went to have a ‘From the 80s room, successful Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam’s Eastern Harbour look the next day, because we only had two weeks left to featuring a giant sweater District. Your Hotel The Exchange on the Damrak is set submit our concept. When we saw the building we thought: to open in two months’ time. How did that come about? this is lunacy, a kind of bear den, the way those rooms and mini-skirt, to the Once upon a time Otto Nan and I started the Lloyd Hotel. run higgledy-piggledy through one another. We stood in romantic crinoline room Perhaps it’s odd that we weren’t hoteliers. I studied front of the property to have a look. It was a hilarious theatre and trained as a drama teacher, but I was situation because everyone bashes into you on this street. or the Rembrandt room, brought up on the visual arts. In addition I was one of Otto said, ‘It’s like a catwalk, all those people walking which features a life-sized the Supperclub’s founders, which explains my hospitality here.’ Then those little radars start spinning, and we experience. Otto and I can now say that we’re hoteliers: thought: Catwalk, fashion… and then it came to us in ruff, each suite has not only did we establish the Lloyd Hotel & Cultural a flash: We have to go and cooperate with the Amsterdam its own identity.’ Embassy and the temporary Llove Hotel in Tokyo, but Fashion Institute – AMFI! we also had international plans for a new hotel when the economic crisis hit; it was hardly the right time to Nannet Van Der Kleijn, Artistic Director of AMFI, and Cassandra Pizzey, launch a prestigious project abroad. Liesbeth in ’t Hout, former Director of AMFI, had given us journalist for design.nl, a comprehensive tour of the academy about 18 months 8 December 2011 What do you look for in a location? earlier. We then heard that they would be giving a fashion We are looking for some kind of ‘counterweight’. We want show at the Bijenkorf department store, with clothing to enter into a relationship with the space. We don’t produced by the students. We then thought: this should immediately think in terms of a hotel, but more from a be seen by more people than just the shopping public. situational point of view. You’ve got the Red Light District; We proposed staging an evening show at the Lloyd Hotel. you’ve got those millions of people who walk past here, The room was packed and it was a major success. which is really hysterical. All day long there is movement We were really impressed by AMFI and we have a strong

24 Hotel The Exchange 25 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions relationship with fashion. This is partly due to my grand- nothing into something. It is fascinating to see the effect mother, who lived in Paris and made clothing inspired by this project has on the idea of fabrics. Metres and metres the great designers. My mother, who was an art historian, of fabric were woven and knitted there, with a lot of had a close relationship with Ms Lamaker (1922–2010), attention for the development of the designs, from sketch who was the first lecturer at the art academy in Arnhem to end product. That is why it is so much fun to cooperate: to take fashion seriously. I have always focused on we fit together! The proto-ideas for the rooms already innovation, also due to my father, who was director of the arose at this early stage. At a given moment we asked Kröller-Müller Museum. We were ‘modern’, outsiders in fashion designer Marga Weimans to give a workshop for the neighbourhood. This background sparked my interest. the students in order to re-connect with fashion. You could By instinct everything is interdisciplinary to me: I don’t see something happening and that was precisely what it see such a big difference between fashion, architecture still needed. and music. Did the students realize that there was still a long How did the cooperation with the students from way to go after they had produced their sketches? AMFI go? The students didn’t have such a clear idea of what is I’m always really curious and I enjoy seeing how people feasible. You don’t simply ‘dress up’ a room; it involves develop themselves. For many years I worked as an all kinds of things. The XXXL size, especially, takes some adviser on visual art in the public space for SKOR getting used to, but practical matters such as the fire (Stichting Kunst en Openbare Ruimte, the Foundation regulations which a hotel has to meet also need to be for Art and Public Space) as well as the Mondriaan considered. Luckily we had Ingrid Horsselenberg, who Foundation, and I realized projects together with inter- helped with every definitive change from one situation national artists. I’ve also critiqued the work of students to another. It was her task to ensure that the ideas of as a state examiner. There comes a time when you know the students could actually be realized. We asked Matthijs how to work with students. When we were standing there of Studio INA-MATT to oversee the process. Matthijs began on the Damrak we instantly knew that we were going with a workshop in the building. We eventually asked to ask AMFI students to ‘dress up’ the rooms. Ina and Matthijs to take control of the supervision of the complete designing of the hotel, the shop, restaurant Hotel The Exchange is comprised of one historical and public spaces. Besides ‘dressing up’ the rooms the building and two modern buildings (from 1970 and collaboration between the TextielLab and AMFI will also 1980), which used to serve as a hotel of dubious be given a place in the Options! shop. We’ve offered the reputation. What was necessary to transform it into Textielmuseum a third of this design department store a contemporary hotel? situated on the Damrak in order to use it as a platform The rooms are considerably smaller and more intimate next year. TextielLab products will be sold here, as will, than the rooms in the Lloyd Hotel. Architects ONSWERK for example, the fabrics from some of the hotel’s rooms added a sense of open playfulness by creating transparent by the metre. panels to allow hotel visitors to peer between floors, retail and restaurant spaces. The firm amalgamated Can you tell us something about the rooms? three buildings, from different periods, into one hotel using Room 619, the Mattress Room by Roos Soetekouw, is the 17th-century structure as a focal point. The AMFI’s really special. Lavish textile with a design of deconstructed fourth-year students and recent alumni were given the mattresses. Roos took a mattress apart and captured following assignment: treat the spaces like bodies and the process on photographs. She translated these images ‘dress them up’. By taking this approach and avoiding into a new, beautiful fabric. It fits perfectly with the the use of the words interior design, innovative solutions concept. The EIGHTIES ROOM is special because of the were developed. A body is free to move in the space retro style. The room is dressed in an oversized 1980s and a room is the opposite: you actually stand within it. sweater. It’s a miracle that you were able to knit that That makes it a complicated question. A secondary crazy black-and-white sweater for this room. Initially we assignment was to treat everything else that is placed had no idea how to make it. We were thinking of knitting in the room as an accessory. it by hand.

What brought you to the TextielLab?

The students started to work in the hotel before any- Misunderstood Creature by Roos Soetekouw thing had been done, using the rooms of the hotel as The Room of Misunderstood Creatures is a a sketchbook. The financing hadn’t been arranged yet, fashion installation that includes three lovely, yet troubled, illustrated creatures. The complexity of the rooms were not yet empty, but the students were the Misunderstood Creatures is perfectly expressed already allowed in. The students were free to experiment in the custom-designed fabric that dresses the with whatever they encountered there. An advantage of windows and furniture, a triple-layer knit with a dark nude skin, a core of black loop yarns, this was the fact that they immediately saw how much and a sheer and shimmering nylon surface. space a bed actually occupies. Rooms were designed and during this process we realised that if you design Unaware Reality by Iris Kloppenburg Both of Iris Kloppenburg’s rooms, Unaware Reality a garment you begin with the fabric! The students started and Infusion, are fully dressed in a solid, custom- to draw up designs, to conceive textiles. The fabrics were made cloth with a graphic dreamscape woven in. our building material. The cooperation with the TextielLab The sober yet precise panelling in a rich and rather stiff quality fabric seems to refer to the Japanese is so special because you have such a direct contact kimono. Unaware Reality echoes your ‘floating with the materials. You can see the fabrics develop from world’ by night.

26 Hotel The Exchange 27 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions ‘I walked a total of 3.5 km to produce 600 metres of cord, which almost wore down the soles of my shoes.’ Ruben De Reu, product developer, passementerie

commissioned by Rotterdam-based bureau Claus draw light deep into the NIOO, Wageningen (NL) en Kaan Architecten won the building. The designer Bas commission to design a new van Tol, who also devised the designer building for the Netherlands layout of the Textielmuseum’s Müller Van Tol Institute of Ecology (Nederlands Entrance Building, was Instituut voor Ecologie, or NIOO), responsible for designing the technique a research institute of the translucent, spatial partitions passementerie Royal Netherlands Academy of for the high atrium at the Arts and Sciences (Koninklijke entrance to the NIOO building. cord braiding Nederlandse Academie van The series of thick greenish object category Wetenschappen, or KNAW), cords of Trevira CS, 6 to 12 in Wageningen. Studio Müller metres long and hanging next interior textile Van Tol was brought in to to each other, are subtly attuned location create the interior design. to the building’s rhythmicity The commissioner’s aim was and the colour scheme of its Netherlands Institute to realize the most sustainable interior. of Ecology (NIOO) building in the Netherlands, an ambition already rewarded Wageningen by it being shortlisted for the 2011 title of ‘Most Sustainable Industrial Building in the Netherlands’. One point of particular interest to the architects was the creation of spaces for informal meetings. Voids ensure there is communi- cation between the floors and

28 Müller Van Tol 29 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by Provinciehuis Maastricht (NL) artist Karin Peulen (NL) title Hemelswater (Heavenly water) technique weaving object category art location canteen, Provinciehuis Maastricht credits Province of Limburg curator Ad Himmelreich

‘As an artist I feel like An abstract, green-white fabric with pattern of the root into the four-metre- I’m an alchemist as well, some bright red streaks, in which one wide wall hanging for Provinciehuis can discern a leaf pattern, roots and Maastricht, Karin Peulen is alluding constantly searching for silvery, gleaming water drops, covers one in a highly subtle, symbolic way to the the ultimate, the discovery wall of the canteen of the Provinciehuis democratic concepts that Deleuze saw (seat of the Provincial Government of in this phenomenon. The fabric was and transmutation Limburg) in Maastricht. Nature lovers woven in several bands. Ruben De Reu, of an idea or vision will recognize the leaves of Alchemilla who is a trained textile restorer, rein- (Lady’s Mantle). The artist Karin Peulen forced the edges of the wall hanging into a work of art.’ based her wall hanging on a painted in order to achieve a tautly stretched collage of photos of the foliage and roots surface. He then mounted the textile Karin Peulen, Dutch artist of Alchemilla (which could be translated on the wooden frame, using a restoration as ‘little alchemist’). Alchemists referred technique that is normally used for to dewdrops on the foliage of the Lady’s old Gobelin tapestries. Mantle as ‘heavenly water’, and they were an important ingredient in their concoctions. A second, conceptual layer of meaning that is woven into the cloth relates to the rhizome theory of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. A rhizome is an underground rootstock system of intersecting spurs, which creates junctions without beginning or end. Each point is connected with another random point. Using the symbol of the rhizome, Deleuze advocated the preservation of a cultural diversity that is not organized hierarchically. By incorporating the visual

30 Hemelswater / Karin Peulen 31 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by Municipality of Puttershoek (NL) designer Annelys de Vet (NL) title Kalender Puttershoek (Puttershoek Calendar) technique weaving object category household textiles (towels) / banner presentation / location gift of welcome for Puttershoek’s new residents / banner for the Zorgwaard footbridge, Puttershoek credits Foundation for Art and Public Series of words that express one Space (Stichting Kunst en aspect of Puttershoek’s cultural, historical or botanical characteristics. Openbare Ruimte, or SKOR) Amsterdam

The Municipality of Puttershoek of the sugar beet harvest: a in the Province of South Holland sugar refinery was established asked Annelys de Vet to design in the village in the early 20th a calendar as part of activities century, though it closed its organized in the context of a doors in 2004, and words like newly built residential district sugar cooperative, white, sugar, in Puttershoek. De Vet moulded crystal and sugar beet evoke the assignment to her will by this history. Each new resident designing 12 tea towels that receives one tea towel from can serve as a calendar with the series of 12, together with regional topicality. Her source a small publication about the of inspiration for the graphic project, as a gift of welcome design was the typically Dutch from the municipal council. chequered tea towel. Each An enlarged version of the ‘tea month is filled in with a series towel of the month’ is hung of words that express one at a central spot in the public aspect of Puttershoek’s cultural, space. historical or botanical character- istics. For example, the month of October takes the theme

32 Kalender Puttershoek / Annelys de Vet 33 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions ‘There are so many possibilities, choices and details. We developed things at the Lab that I could have neither conceived nor resolved from behind my computer screen. The knowledge, skill and experience of the staff is immense and in the process I learnt a lot about weaving, textiles, yarns and weaving patterns. Thanks to them and due to this collaboration I have developed a true love for textile that will undoubtedly express itself in future projects.’

Annelys de Vet, Dutch designer

34 Kalender Puttershoek / Annelys de Vet 35 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by Maasstad Hospital Rotterdam (NL) designer Designstudio Lotte van Laatum designed through a Gothic church Lotte van Laatum (NL) all the elements of a liturgical window. The designer converted centre for the Maasstad the patterns of light that fell title Hospital in Rotterdam, including on the objects using inlay work Liturgische elementen a crucifix, tables, a candlestick, of white marble in the pale a set of altar linen and two wood. In the textile design, (Liturgical elements) banners. The ecumenical Lotte van Laatum harked back technique services for patients are held to the basic forms of circle in the hospital’s auditorium, and sphere, which determine weaving, passementerie a walled-in space without any the basic shape of the Gothic cord braiding natural light. However, because church window and are also of its biblical significance, the symbols for the sun, the divine object category phenomenon of light serves and the perfect. In a play of interior textiles as the basis of the design. light and shadow, the spheres To compensate for the absence are subtly illuminated in the location of natural daylight and of table-linen. The choice of auditorium Maasstad elements of ecclesiastical material for the altar set is architecture, Van Laatum came also unusual: a linen warp with Hospital, Rotterdam up with a device: using a small a weft of linen and lambswool. scale model with models of The overall picture is convincing her liturgical furniture, she due to its serene aura and simulated daylight entering clear-cut design.

36 Liturgische elementen / Lotte van Laatum 37 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by MOTI (Museum Of The Image), Breda (NL) designer Hayon Studio / Jaime Hayon (SP) title ¿Que pasa guey? (What’s up, dude?) technique weaving, laser technique embroidery, passementerie object category art presentation ‘The Pop-Up Generation. Design between Dimensions’ exhibition, MOTI, Breda

The Spanish designer Jaime Hayon Two 60cm-high, abstract white heads as in the Mexican example, for lacing stands at the forefront of a new wave with Pinocchio noses, a typical icon up the masks at the back. The clothing of creators who are blurring the lines in Hayon’s formal idiom, are encased manufacturing department could utilise between art, decoration and design. in striking, silver-coloured masks. The its knowledge of pattern design and He is famous both for his autonomous double-weave of the masks is built up Jaime Hayon also found a use for work and as an internationally sought- from silver-coloured polyester yarn and the edges of the woven textile: one after designer for the development of pastel-coloured mohair yarns, which of the masks has a mohican hairstyle, products and for the interiors of shops, were woven in a gradation of tone. the other a beard. This way, Hayon’s restaurants and exhibitions. His most Hayon, who was working at the TextielLab masks match the fighting masks recent fait accompli is the design of for the first time, had set himself the of the wrestlers, each of which has the lounge at the Groninger Museum. goal of incorporating as many techniques a distinctive character. Trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort invited as possible in the masks. Aside from Hayon and a dozen European designers the weaving of the base fabric, he had to develop new work for the ‘The Pop-Up patterns burned out in black imitation Generation’ exhibition in association leather for the appliqué of mouth, eyes with a number of Dutch companies and and ears, using laser technique. The ‘production houses’. Jaime Hayon was pieces of imitation leather are decorated coupled with the Textielmuseum. with white embroidery in a variety of Proceeding from his interest in street stitches, which Hayon had found in one culture and graffiti art, the designer took of the embroidery sample books. A cord the masks worn by Mexican wrestlers as that was produced at the TextielLab’s the basis for his playful maxi versions. passementerie department serves,

38 ¿Que pasa guey? / Jaime Hayon 39 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions ‘At the Lab, they do not approach textiles in a traditional way. Instead, they look at textiles from various degrees.’

Jaime Hayon, Spanish designer

40 ¿Que pasa guey? / Jaime Hayon 41 X / Chapter 42 ¿Que pasa guey? / Jaime Hayon 43 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art Helsinki (FI) ‘Otobong draws everything by hand at first, and then artist it is digitised and processed Otobong Nkanga (NG) in order to be able to weave it. She has an exceptional title personal style.’ Fragilologist’s Brechje Trompert, product developer weaving Predicament technique weaving object category art presentation ‘ARS 11’ exhibition KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki credits Courtesy of the artist Visual artist Otobong Nkanga was born and Lumen Travo Gallery in Nigeria and currently lives in Paris Amsterdam (NL) and Antwerp, having studied in her native country, France and the Netherlands. She works in a broad spectrum of media, such as installations, photography, drawings and sculpture. In her own powerful personal style and inspired by her African background, Otobong Nkanga draws and paints semi-figurative, semi-abstract, surreal images that recall the brutal colonial experience of her homeland. Her work also alludes to general human themes such as power, oppression and the vulnerability of humankind and nature. Fragilologist’s Predicament, the work that she produced on the invitation of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, is a woven translation of her sketches. The double-woven textile covers two folded double panels, each measuring 6 metres high and more than 3 metres wide, which were placed in the atrium of the museum’s foyer. In a video about this work, the artist explains that the word fragilologist is her own neologism, giving expression to her research into the fragility of humankind in his environment.

44 Fragilologist’s Predicament / Otobong Nkanga 45 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by In 2011, Mercure Hotels, which The winner of the Mercure Accor Hotels has for many years been active Cultuurprijs 2011 was the as a sponsor of cultural events Rotterdam-based food and Nederland (NL) in the Netherlands, launched product designer Mieke Cuppen, designers the Mercure Cultuurprijs. This who managed to convince prize was established as an the jury with her elegant, yet Mieke Cuppen (winner) annual national design competi- soberly designed, table concept Sander Lucas and tion to offer Dutch artists and Ambigu, featuring warm hues designers a stage. Mercure of white-grey, copper and pale DeJongeKalff (equal 2nd) Hotels is a chain and therefore turquoise. Components of title also offer places where you Cuppen’s design concept will can breakfast, lunch and dine. be produced by Mercure Hotels Mercure Cultuurprijs Because of the intensive use for use in their properties. 2011 (Mercure Culture of the restaurants, the table The second prize was shared linen and the service is by Sander Lucas and the design Prize 2011) replaced every year. This is why duo DeJongeKalff (Jennifer de technique the assignment was as follows: Jonge and Roos Kalff). ‘Design a table concept for weaving Mercure Hotels. The whole object category set-up of a dining table is central, from service to table household textiles linen, from candlesticks to table linen cutlery.’ An expert jury short- listed three designs from the presentation 62 entries, with the requirement The prototypes by to work on the sketches and produce prototypes at various Mieke Cuppen, design institutions. The TextielLab duo ‘DeJongeKalff’ helped develop the table linen. and Sander Lucas are touring through the Netherlands, and can be seen in the various The jury was composed of Ron Blaauw, proprietor of ‘Mercure Hotels has Mercure hotels. The the Michelin-starred Ron Blaauw restaurant; Renny been supporting the travelling exhibition can Ramakers, design critic and co-founder and director of Droog Design; Kees van Twist, former director of Dutch arts and culture be admired in the lobby the Groninger Museum; Ranti Tjan, Director of the sector for many years. of the specified hotel. European Ceramic Work Centre (Europees Keramisch Werk Centrum, or EKWC); Gerrit Uittenbogaard, The Mercure Culture designer for G+N; Hebe Verstappen, Creative Director Prize will be returning of the TextielLab at Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg; and Caro van Eekelen, Managing Director of Accor in 2012, given that Hotels Nederland, who also served as chairman of talented designers the jury. They judged all the entries using five criteria: design, use of materials, functionality, conceptual are of great cultural innovation, and suitability for a Mercure hotel. and economic value for the Netherlands.’

Caro van Eekelen, chairman of the jury

46 Mercure Cultuurprijs 2011 / Mieke Cuppen 47 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions commissioned by Sutfene, Zutphen (NL) artist Sarah Barkmeijer (NL) title Natuurtafereel (Nature scene) technique weaving object category art, wall covering location De Lunette nursing home, Zutphen credits Residents of De Lunette, Zutphen and the Frans Hals Museum Haarlem (NL)

People who suffer from Barkmeijer decided to look ‘The woven panorama dementia often experience for illustrations of the flora has a tactility due to nursing homes as a labyrinth. and fauna in the environs of Artist Sarah Barkmeijer was Zutphen. She also used recent its structure and commissioned to create photos of the nature in the use of materials that a place that is recognizable region. As a third layer she and invites interaction for added drawings of nature appeals to the sense of the residents of De Lunette scenes, which De Lunette’s touch. It lends a warm, nursing home who have residents who are suffering dementia. Another requirement from dementia produced soft aura to a space was that the work of art would specifically for this work. where the materials retain its meaning for the The wall covering, which was next 20 years, in the midst woven at the TextielLab in are primarily functional of an ever-changing society. 16 sections, is made up of and easy to clean.’ Barkmeijer therefore decided completely natural materials to represent nature patterns, and has the classic compo- Sarah Barkmeijer, which can evoke experiences sition of a gobelin tapestry. Dutch artist of beauty, joy and comfort. In order to increase the For a 20-metre-long wall she landscape effect, the fabric designed a wall covering with was mounted on an undulating a panoramic representation of structure. The visual image the four seasons. The pano- is complimented by the rama is based on a collage sound of birds and woodland of old illustrations, engravings animals that is activated and landscape paintings from by sensors, which brings the 16th to 19th century. the scenes to life.

48 Natuurtafereel / Sarah Barkmeijer 49 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions project Rothschild Bank Headquarters, New Court, London (GB) commissioned by N.M. Rothschild & Sons designers OMA / TextielLab (NL) The famous Dutch architecture In contrast to the modern title bureau OMA, with branches in building of steel and glass, Textile depicting a landscape Rotterdam, New York, Beijing embedded in the historical and Hong Kong, is involved in situation, OMA focuses on the from a 1864 map of prestigious architecture projects history of the banking family Gunnersbury Park and urban planning concepts in the interior design. Ellen all over the globe. In 2006 van Loon, one of OMA’s seven technique OMA won an architecture partners, throws light on the weaving competition for the expansion development of a 30-metre-wide of the Rothschild Bank head- wall hanging for the private object category quarters in London in the and VIP spaces, which was interior textiles, historical setting of the New produced at the TextielLab, Court precincts. After designing in an interview with Hebe textile weaving on the core and shell (the empty Verstappen. 5m-high panels building with the core structures (core) and the façade (shell) location of the building), the bureau was 15th floor, New Court also commissioned to design the interior for the private London (GB) and VIP spaces in the rooftop credits Sky Pavillion, designed by OMA. OMA (Partner in charge Ellen van Loon; team: Elisa Simonetti, Saskia Simon, Katrien van Dijk)

50 51 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions ‘A conceptual interpretation of the situation’ Hebe Verstappen interviews Ellen van Loon, OMA partner and project manager for the newly built extension to the Rothschild Bank Headquarters, London (GB)

Rotterdam, 18 November 2011

Ellen, can you elucidate the context of your project the small photos (10x3cm) to 5 metres high and 30 for the Rothschild Bank in London? metres across. For other floors, we also printed existing We took part in a competition for the new extension of paintings on silk. The new structure contains a vast the Rothschild Bank Headquarters in the historical setting amount of applications of archival material. of the New Court precincts and won that competition. We started working on the project in 2005. The first Did the family specifically ask you to use their contract that we received was just for the design of the archival material in the designs? ‘core & shell’, meaning the empty building with the basic The Rothschild family is an old banking family that has structures including staircases and lifts (core) and the always been involved in architecture and art, and has a façade (shell). The interior design assignment that was large archive at its disposal. The archive holds old letters, given to OMA for the representative spaces such as busts, gifts from acquaintances from 1800 onwards, and the meeting rooms and client dining rooms came later. silver artefacts. They are very fond of that heritage. This They commissioned an English interior designer for family archive ended up in a room of its own in the form the public floors. of a library on the ground floor. For us it always presents a challenge to integrate specific culture, local or otherwise, What made the commission so interesting? in an assignment. The client boasts a really rich and interesting history. It was a challenge to use this fact in combination with Who came up with the idea of using textile? a modern building of steel and glass. The history of the Two things were interesting to us to use as a starting point user is represented in the interior. It was almost like an for the interior design: first, there was the archive; second, historical layer that we were able to add to the building. we were intrigued by the English style of interior design. Additionally, a bank building requires spaces that look The old building had many walls that were clad in pink stylish and business-like. We therefore had to develop textiles, which is typically English. We were intrigued by the a totally new palette of materials and colours for this way the British go about their interior. Because we came commission. Business-like and refined in a conceptual across so many clad walls, we were interested in repeating interpretation of the situation. this method but this time using a modern type of fabric.

Can you describe the building? Did the Rothschild family understand where you Above the building’s ground floor hangs a cube, which wanted to go with the interior design? accommodates the general office spaces. Above these It wasn’t simple and I had a few moments where there are two floors: client meeting rooms and client dining I thought to myself: what have I got myself into? They were rooms. A tower ‘floats’ above this ensemble, comprising accustomed to the classical way of design and have, for three floors, one of which is set aside for technical example, an enormous collection of historic paintings. services. Floors 14 and 15 are above this. On the 15th For them covering a wall was simple: you have a wall and floor we made a panoramic space, a multifunctional space, you completely cover it with paintings. We thought that offering an incredible vista across the City of London. was overly classical and wanted to tackle it in a modern You can use this space for large presentations, but you manner. It was really difficult for them to imagine what can also divide it into three separate meeting rooms. it would look like, so on the 10th floor we produced a mock up – a life-size model to give them a good idea. Where were the textile wall panels that were made in The mock up was a good move in order to be able to the Lab hung and what do the designs look like? continue. Nor was it easy for them to imagine the textile We developed a textile wall covering with a landscape panel measuring 30 by 5 metres. We had large sections design for the whole breadth of the panoramic space on woven and presented at least 10 samples with sections of level 15. For the design we used a landscape design for the design on the ground floor. Based on the presentation one of the Rothschild country estates in England, depicted they then selected one sample whose colour scheme on a photo of a watercolour that we found in the archives. and level of abstraction they liked. I would have liked Given the large surface area of the walls, we magnified something more abstract.

52 Textile depicting a landscape from a 1864 map of Gunnersbury Park / OMA – TextielLab 53 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions How did you end up choosing the TextielLab? Would you approach us again for the development Our contact with the TextielLab developed because, of interior textiles? initially, we wanted to embroider. Embroidery is a beautiful I think that we will certainly be employing textiles again technique and we had many samples made, by other for interior design assignments! The nice thing is that we embroidery companies as well. The ‘problem’ however now know how it works. We have found a way to shape was the scale, because there’s only an area of 50x50 cm a textile in the exact way we imagined it. If I find myself you can work with. Then, in discussion with you, we let once again thinking of fabrics that I cannot buy anywhere, go of the embroidery idea because weaving proved to be I will think: ‘We’ll develop that together with TextielLab.’ much easier. It wasn’t easy at all… we had never woven What is nice about the Lab is the fact that it is a creative something. A lot of time went into the development of the place in which development takes precedence. It’s woven panels. Some members of my team worked at the possible to really dive into the process together. In the TextielLab every day: Saskia Simon, Katrien van Dijk and process we also learnt to speak each other’s language. Elisa Simonetti. I directed the project. Since I work on If you say ‘A’ now, I know what you mean, and vice versa. several projects, I couldn’t spend full days with you. Saskia The interaction makes it fun. The textile panels for Bank and Katrien made the first samples. I took a look at the are really a product of us both; I would never be able textile at crucial moments. They would come to the office to say that the design is purely ours. At the end of the in Rotterdam and we would discuss the samples. At the day it was a joint design. start, I consistently considered the rear side to be more beautiful than the front side. I then spent several days We produced so many samples and eventually used just designing at the TextielLab, together with Katrien, because 10 per cent. We developed such an awful lot! There’s sometimes you have to see things for yourself. more than enough material for the future!

Why didn’t you opt for an experienced textile designer? What does the TextielLab represent? We sometimes do that, but not in this case. For curtains For us it has almost been part of our own bureau. We we often work with Petra Blaisse. When it comes to some experiment with materials incredibly often and try to assignments it is simply fun to experiment. Sometimes compose a new ‘menu’ for every building. I really enjoyed you have such a clear idea of what you want that it is too the fact that the atmosphere at the Textiellab is similar complicated to ask someone else. It also adds an extra to the atmosphere at our bureau: informal but also really layer to the project; it then goes further than designing professional, but in such a way that there is leeway for the architecture. experiment. You sit down with a team of people, there is an idea that is still vague and you ‘simply’ start to build, Did you often have doubts during the process? and you put the pieces together. Together you arrive at Yes, very often. I wasn’t familiar with the material, so an end product. That is the best thing…. The interaction I had to trust you. We also needed time to get used to was also amazing, it taught us so much! each other. The images were very small and I could not get a grip on the scale. That is why we ended up arranging For every project we have to find manufacturers who can the cloth in a textile ‘grid’ of 0.5 cm. This helped us get produce something special for that building. The TextielLab a better idea of the size. Weaving is difficult, and we is one of these. Some companies are very strict and have worked with someone from the TextielLab who had lots their own way of production, which we have to adhere to. of experience. At the same time, I really wanted to do But some companies, such as the Lab, are just enthusias- something that had never been done. It was a continuous tic. The moment we approached you, you were already process. enthusiastic, it was as if we were greeted at a ‘party’. There was an instant connection, it was extremely good We started out with brown hues and gold. Then there was and something we have rarely experienced. Restoration a period when we worked with very fierce colours, such companies have the same attitude, the craftsmanship, the as glaring pink. In the end I looked for the finishing touch knowledge, the urge to experiment… that is truly special. of the design. The textile should not end up with an Developing new things is something that truly fascinates outdated look. The gold might have come right out of the the both of us. You were also very flexible and had a drive 18th century; it did not reflect our interpretation enough. to persist. When it comes to weave structures, it is easy, when looking from a distance, to mistake a combination of colours that is woven into the cloth for a single colour. It is a very big ‘mixed panel’. I now know how it goes and I’m familiar with the ways colours can be mixed in weaving, but back then I found it terribly difficult.

Nor did I have any idea whether you, as a relatively small institution, could deal with such a large commission. It is such an enormous project, but sometimes you have to take risks. If I don’t take any risks then we’ll get nowhere.

54 Textile depicting a landscape from a 1864 map of Gunnersbury Park / OMA – TextielLab 55 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions ‘With this exceptional project we have been able to show that we can deal such a large commision. We are very grateful for their trust.’ Hebe Verstappen, Creative Director of the TextielLab

56 Textile depicting a landscape from a 1864 map of Gunnersbury Park / OMA – TextielLab 57 I / Commissions from Industry and Institutions Independent Projects

Textile designers are not the only II ones using the facilities of the TextielLab, as artists, architects and product and fashion designers also make use of them. More and more designers from across Europe find their way to the TextielLab. Most of them fall in love with the Lab and keep coming back after their first work experience there. We would like to introduce some projects developed on the initiative of designers in 2011.

58 59 II / Independent Projects artist Robert Zandvliet (NL) title Veronica technique tufting In the 1990s, the painter Veronica was the source of object category Robert Zandvliet established inspiration for this work, which art a name for himself with his is almost entirely black. Using motionless representations a clay model and drawings presentation of everyday objects. At the end of the pile height, developed ‘Veronica’ exhibition of 1996 the first landscapes by Zandvliet, the tufter Karen were created, which became Zeedijk produced the cloth. In De KetelFactory increasingly abstract. After order to achieve an even greater Schiedam (NL) Zandvliet, commissioned by plasticity in the tufted cloth, the reputable law firm Pels pile was also shaved off on the Rijken from The Hague, had front side, alongside the various four wall tapestries tufted, pile heights (up to 4.5cm). he approached the TextielLab Together, they also made for the second time in 2010, samples to create the illusion in order to have his own work of light shining through the produced. The sketch that cloth. Pink mohair wool mixed served as the point of departure with grey mohair yarn achieved for the tufted cloth shows the desired effect. The tapestry two closed curtains, through has almost become a sculpture which light passes from behind. and required an intensive The biblical tale of the Veil of process of cooperation.

‘We ended up modelling the tapestry directly and subtly altering colours. Robert stood and watched on the front side of the tapestry and, by pressing his hand on the cloth, indicated the places in which more mohair yarn needed to be shot through. I would then use my tuft gun on the rear side of the tapestry.’ Karen Zeedijk, tufter at the TextielLab

60 Veronica / Robert Zandvliet 61 II / Independent Projects The young design duo Studio wire chairs equipped with felted WM (Wendy Legro and Maarten cushions. The knitted cover of Collignon) presented the the cushions was produced on Lightness in Lines interior line the Lab’s circular knitting during the 2011 Dutch Design machine. The chosen technique Week in Eindhoven. The duo and yarns match perfectly. One played with optical weight and side of the double cloth that light in the series of interior was produced on the circular designers objects. For the development of knitting machine was made of Studio WM (NL) components for their chairs and nylon shrinking yarn, while the lamps, they made use of the other side was made of yarn title TextielLab’s expertise. Gradient that is easy to felt. The double Lightness in Lines Lamp is the title of their glass cloth was knitted together in lamps, blown according to several places using a specific (Gradient Lamp; traditional methods, which can pattern, which produced small Easy Chair; Chair) be adjusted in height by means pockets. The pockets were of a pulley system. The colour inlaid with filling yarn. Next, by technique of the yarn, which was braided washing and steaming every- braiding, knitting for the cable at the passemen- thing, the felted yarn on the terie department, smoothly front side and the shrinking yarn felting shifts into the colour of the shrink, which makes the filling object category glass shade, which displays yarn in the cushions bulge out. a subtle gradation of tone. It is hard to imagine that the felt interior textiles Easy Chair and Chair are light cushions have a knitted basis. presentation Dutch Design Week Eindhoven (NL)

62 Lightness in Lines / Studio WM 63 II / Independent Projects ‘I want to make textiles that are not only stylish, but also have communicative functions. The designed product is the content itself. My goal is to design textiles that not only look good, designer but have multiple levels.’ Zara Atelj (CH) Zara Atelj, title Swiss textile designer The Daily Pattern technique weaving, laser technique object category interior textiles presentation Designmeile Zürich (Ikea Stiftung Schweiz & Christophe Marchand), 2011 (CH) The Daily Pattern publication (2010 / 2011) credits BKVB Fund, Amsterdam (NL) The Swiss designer Zara Atelj initiated and subsequently transform them Ikea Stiftung The Daily Pattern project together into textile patterns. Using various Schweiz (CH) with her Swedish colleague Annika methods and techniques, the collection Syrjämäki. Next, the designers each ranges from low-tech to high-tech, went their own way. The Daily Pattern a combination of handcrafted and is a research project that investigates computer-programmed designs that how to base textile designs on real change on a daily basis. content. The question is how to visualise this information and bring it back to its natural environment, the living room or bedroom, without turning the patterns into sheer infographics or data visualizations. The patterns and designs should still have a certain poetic character. Using the daily flow of news from newspapers as a source of inspiration for the design of home textiles, it was important to highlight the impact and changes in the news

64 The Daily Pattern / Zara Atelj 65 II / Independent Projects The Swedish textile designer which the resulting form is the Annika Syrjämäki and her Swiss direct product of the content colleague Zara Atelj initiated the itself. The project started off Daily Pattern project together, with the creation of a database but then each went their own to store news from six different way. We are surrounded by newspapers around the world: a constant flow of information The Guardian, The Australian, at all times. Daily Pattern is The Citizen, Shanghai Daily, a research project exploring the The Washington Post and possibilities of content-based The New York Times. Syrjämäki textile design in which the daily worked together with a program- designer news is used as the inspiration mer to develop processing Annika Syrjämäki (SE) and content for the patterns. applications to analyse and Too often, textile design is generate patterns from this title approached from a purely information. Daily Pattern Project aesthetic perspective. This project explores approaches technique to textile design that serve weaving, printing, not only a stylistic, but also a communicative function in laser technique object category textile design presentation TEDx Flanders, Royal Athenaeum, Antwerp (BE) Daily Pattern Project publication (2010 / 2011) credits BKVB Fund, Amsterdam (NL)

66 Daily Pattern Project / Annika Syrjämäki 67 II / Independent Projects designer Studio Jo Meesters (NL) title Souvenirs Perdus D’Un Village Lointain (Neo Vanitas; Lycoperdon Pyriforme; Souvenirs Perdus d’un Village wool, luminous and acrylic Aurelia Eichhornia) Lointain is the title of an yarns, and upcycled wool technique installation with a collection blankets. Jo Meesters worked of interior textiles and interior together with the TextielLab weaving, knitting, felting objects by Studio Jo Meesters. for the development and object category Nature and nomadic life production of the three groups dominate the narrative voca- of objects. Neo Vanitas is a interior textiles, interior objects bulary of this new collection. series of room dividers with presentation While travelling through flora and fauna motifs deriving Southeast Asia, Studio Jo from old encyclopaedias. Dutch Design Week (NL) Meesters was inspired by The floor cushions with the Inside Design Amsterdam (NL) the colourful, handcrafted, wondrous title Lycoperdon folkloristic textiles and furniture Pyriforme were knitted in the Qubique – Next Generation of Vietnam. The studio trans- right shape using the Knit&Wear Tradeshow, Berlin (DE) formed this inspiration into a flatbed knitting machine and vital contemporary expression were then felted. The knitting and elsewhere in which craftsmanship and that encompasses the glass credits mass production techniques lampshades like a gossamer go hand in hand, side by side. skin is unusual. Jo Meesters research and development The collection is made mostly developed both the yarn for the Marion Rousselin, from textiles, materials varying Aurelia Eichhornia series and from organic cotton, mohair the knitting in the TextielLab. Agata Smok, Bertil Brahm, Debbie Agnes, Amba Molly, Emilia Molin, Thomas van der Sman

68 Daily Pattern Project / Annika Syrjämäki 69 II / Independent Projects artist ‘Once I took my ideas to Irene Alvarez (SP) the TextielLab, I started title to get the hang of it Turn Me Op and wanted to do more. (Mickey4eyes; Turning my drawings Acid Smiley; Skull; into textiles gives them OMG!; Bambi) a whole new feeling – technique they become more like weaving objects.’ object category Irene Alvaraz, Spanish artist art, tapestry presentation exhibition at Vienna Art Week 2011, MuseumsQuartier 21, Vienna (AU) credits (text) online magazine Sight Unseen (interview) The Spanish artist Irene Alvarez everything became really was introduced to the possibili- optical for me. The Turn Me ties of the Lab when she was Op textiles are woven with working on a wall object for psychedelic and pop imagery, a concept store in Antwerp. and they have visual effects She became enthusiastic about that make you a bit dizzy. working with textiles. Turn Me What I am really doing is Op is a series meant to give making tapestries – which tapestry a contemporary twist. are meant to reflect the way The illustrations mix op art a given society lives, its with ethnic art and pop culture, culture – and giving them bringing visual effects that a contemporary twist.’ have their reference in optical illusions. Based on drawings, these modern tapestries are woven using electrically conductive and synthetic yarns to create a hologram effect. ‘I got really into seeing textiles as a series of pixels, and

70 Turn Me Op / Irene Alvarez 71 II / Independent Projects artist Vincent Vulsma (NL) title WE455 technique weaving object category art presentation ‘A Sign of Autumn’, solo exhibition Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA) (NL) solo exhibition, Galerie Cinzia Friedlaender, Berlin (DE) ‘A Text is a Thing’, Vistamare Pescara (IT) credits Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Galerie Cinzia Friedlaender, Berlin credits text Hili Perlson

The conceptual work of of the solo exhibition ‘A Sign Negro Art’ exhibition. Vulsma Museum in New York. The displayed at the Stedelijk Vincent Vulsma investigates of Autumn’ at the Stedelijk was particularly interested in a image was then adapted by Museaum Bureau Amsterdam forms of cultural and artistic Museum Bureau Amsterdam, series of documentation photos systematically rotating, cropping in the context of the ‘A Sign appropriation and the division Vulsma created a new series of nineteenth-century raffia and expanding it on the of Autumn’ project, in which of labour in modern art practice. of Jacquard-woven works, textile made by the Kuba tribe computer. The result is a series Vulsma uprooted items from A recurring point of attention named WE455 (I-XIII). The in Central Africa, who use the of fragments that gradually the spatial and chronologic is the exposition of the socio- starting point for WE455 is textile as a means of exchange, zoom from the complete pattern environment of ethnographic economic conditions surround- a collection of black-and-white among other things. Vulsma to individual motifs. He then collections and from the canons ing the manufacturing, presen- photos, commissioned by the appropriated the photos. translated these digitalised of modernistic design and tation and distribution of art MoMA, New York and made in WE455 is based on a digital fragments (pixels) to the textile photography in order to bring in a society that is dominated 1935 by the American photo- copy of one of these photos medium (weaves). A first them together in a montage. by recycling and immaterial grapher Walker Evans, of the that he selected from the selection from the series of production. For the occasion museum pieces in the ‘African archives of the Metropolitan 13 Jacquard works was

72 WE455 / Vincent Vulsma 73 II / Independent Projects designer Maria Blaisse (NL) title square beret; meeting curves; circular hat shawl technique knitting, felting object category clothing accessories credits Maria Blaisse Lise Lefebvre

In her work, well-known Dutch the Onda series, in which the designer Maria Blaisse frequent- design potential of the inner ly balances on the boundaries tube is once again the starting between art, design and point. In the case of the hat, the fashion. Her intensive studies focus is on a new way of playing of the design possibilities of with the dimensions of the inner an inner tube often result in tube, which creates additional forms and representations possibilities for ways to wear related to the body. At the it. The circular hat shawl is TextielLab, where she often a single form that can be worn pulls up a chair, she developed over the head and around the three clothing accessories neck. One thing that was at the knitting department: special about the cooperation ‘The intangible has become tangible due a square beret, a round hat between the designer and the to a meticulous investigation of three and a circle-shaped shawl that knitting department’s product variables that determine an object’s size. includes a hat. The three developers was the systematic Through this investigation, we have gained objects were produced using way in which three variables a lot of knowledge, but we wouldn’t have been the Knit&Wear knitting machine in the manufacturing of the able to do so without taking the time for it.’ and were then felted. The beret objects were investigated. By Huub Waulthers, product developer, knitting is a continuation of earlier using various yarns, stitch sizes designs such as the rubber and finishing processes, such hats that Maria Blaisse as washing and steaming, and designed for the Japanese recording all the results in a fashion designer Issey Miyake table, the size of objects can in the late 1980s. Both the be determined precisely in meeting curves hat and the future projects. circular hat shawl are a further development of the knitted and felted circle-shaped tubes from

74 square beret; meeting curves; circular hat shawl / Maria Blaisse 75 II / Independent Projects Commissions from the Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg III Table linen in splendid pastel shades, a wall tapestry, or refined knitted fashion: these are some of the commissions for the museum collection that were carried out at the TextielLab this year. The museum’s collection contains a large range of works: damask table linen, printed curtain fabrics and woven carpets, but also recent work by Dutch designers and artists. In the art/design border area, the young Studio FormaFantasma is creating a distinct profile for itself. The studio had its Colony series woven as a collection commission. The work’s narrative approach goes well with contemporary design approaches.

Consumer textiles such as table linen and tea towels are well represented in the collection, which is a good reason to give commissions for this domain each year. Mara Skujeniece’s fascination with her native country Latvia previously helped create intriguing designs. Our request to design consumer textiles from this perspective was well received.

Recently, a collection division was created for fashion, with the criterion that the fashion should (partly) have been

76 77 III / Commissions from Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg developed at the TextielLab. The design collective Painted was approached because of their attention to the crafts- manship and the personal signature of the various artists involved in the development of a design. The challenge was to preserve those sensitive aspects in particular in the mechanical process.

This chapter concludes with a commission from the museum that was realised specifically for the TEXnight.

Caroline Boot, Curator of Art and Design, designers Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg Studio FormaFantasma (IT / NL) title Colony (Asmara; Tripoli; Addis Abeba) technique weaving, sewing, claying object category art / design presentation ‘i FABRIC. EUROPEAN TALENT’ exhibition, Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg (NL); Gallery Libby Sellers, London (GB) credits E & E labels, Tilburg (production labels)

78 79 III / Commissions from Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg The Textielmuseum, together as if they were enlarged with Gallery Libby Sellers post cards and each tapestry in London, commissioned bears a reproduction of an the Italian design duo Studio original stamp, similar to FormaFantasma (Simone those printed in colonial times. Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi) Images of modernist buildings, to design a trio of wall hangings designed by Italian architects, with the title Colony, which that were erected in these were woven in the TextielLab. former colonies overlap with The wall hangings serve as maps of present-day migratory conversation pieces that flows, which are woven in connect the cultural and alongside political data. political impact of Italian Besides translating cultural imperialism in the former and political questions into colonies of Libya, Eritrea and a visual narrative, Studio Ethiopia with contemporary FormaFantasma also uses geopolitical issues such as its work to explore the cultural immigration. These three and political significance of northern African countries materials, traditional techniques remained under Italian colonial and the concept of tradition rule until 1940. The wall in an increasingly globalized tapestries were designed context.

80 Colony (Asmara; Tripoli; Addis Abeba) / Studio FormaFantasma 81 III / Commissions from Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg designers Painted (Saskia van Drimmelen & Margreet Sweerts) (NL) title Painted Secret technique machine knitting, needlepoint lacing by hand, couture object category fashion, garments, lingerie presentation winterSALON, 2012 Amsterdam (NL) credits needlepoint lace by Rumjana Rakovska and Magdalina Toneva Painted believes in the strength ‘Painted Secret’ is a series of collaboration and the of delicate, fully fashioned mattress stitching pleasure of making. Their wish undergarments, knitted in by Polly Kalaidjieva is to revive almost forgotten intarsia, using silk/cashmere crafts, a tribute to delicate yarn. This intarsia technique, beauty. This signature way of by the use of one to three working formed the direct yarns alternately, made it reason to invite the Painted possible to play with different fashion collective, led by transparencies. Both singlets fashion designer Saskia van and dresses all stem from Drimmelen and theatre director the same pattern, produced Margreet Sweerts, to develop a in different colours. What collection piece. Painted works gives each garment its own together with masters in unique unique character is the addition trade skills, like needlepoint of handlace and clothing lace and cord embroidery from elements by both the masters Bulgaria and Native American and Painted. The machine and beadwork. A great challenge different hands/handwritings was to unite the handmade enhance and surround each aspect with the machine made other in this work. knits from the TextileLab.

82 Painted Secret / Painted 83 III / Commissions from Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg 84 Painted Secret / Painted 85 III / Commissions from Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg designer Mara Skujeniece (LV / NL) title Warme en koude doeken (Warm and cold cloths) technique weaving object category interior textiles, household textiles The fount of inspiration for presentation Mara Skujeniece’s Warm and ‘The Making Of’ cold cloths series was Latvia, her native country. During exhibition, Audax a visit to a family of farmers Textielmuseum she came across textiles everywhere - stacks of cloth, Tilburg (NL) all of them with a different size, function and pattern. It gave her the idea to design a coherent series of cloths for various uses with ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ cloths to be used as a plaid, shawl, table-cloth or tea towel. Because of her preference for traditional working methods, she had already become captivated by the old timber barns in Latvia. She worked out the rhythms of the beams and planks, the structures, and the graphic appearance in drawings from memory. The Textielmuseum’s commission prompted her to ask the question: ‘How can I design textiles using these same rhythms and drawings?’ The initial tests involved experiment- ing with weave bindings and the combination of graphic patterns. The samples were woven, then redrawn in line drawings, then converted into computer graphics and transformed into fabric once more. The result is a splendid collection of wool and linen cloths with unusual dimensions that can be used for multiple purposes.

86 Warme en koude doeken / Mara Skujeniece 87 III / Commissions from Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg designer Bas Kosters Studio (NL) title FASHION TRIBE On 29 October 2011, the knitting machine resulted in longest day of the year, both a series of trendy hats with PERFORMANCE Cultuurnacht (Culture Night) monstrous masks. For the first technique and the festive conclusion three days, together with the of the Tilburg Textiles event product developers Huub knitting, performance took place. In this context, Waulthers and Jesse Asjes, he object category the Textielmuseum organized worked on the transformation TEXnight, a stunning event of his monstrous comic figures fashion, accessories with performances, films and into three knitted Jacquards. presentation workshops that attracted Bas Kosters attached great 500 young visitors. In a importance to the transforma- performance at performance, Bas Kosters, tion of his personal signature TEXnight, Audax the enfant terrible of fashion, into the pixels on the computer. fused fashion and nightlife During TEXnight, the product Textielmuseum Tilburg together, creating a surrealistic developer Jesse Asjes was tableau vivant. Professional also visually transformed into dancers and members of the diligent assistant of the Bas Kosters’ studio gave an designer. Dressed up in a bright effervescent performance green dress, she and Bas kept amidst the knitting machines moving around the knitting in the TextielLab. All of them machine. From these knitting wore clothing that Bas Kosters machines flowed the swatches had designed over the last with the monstrous heads, 10 years. The heart of the which were then displayed. tribal-like performance was The hats with their wild grimace the production process of his sat enthroned on stacked designs. The commission to yarn cones that resembled develop something using the totem poles.

‘For the performance I was given a brightly coloured green dress by Bas. I felt just like Willy Wonka in the knitting factory.’ Jesse Asjes, product developer, knitting

88 FASHION TRIBE PERFORMANCE / Bas Kosters Studio 89 III / Commissions from Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg Educational Programmes in the TextielLab IV The TextielAcademie, the museum’s education department, develops programmes for groups of students in consultation with selected national and international training institutes. The aim of these specialised educational programmes is to coach talented and creative young future designers with an open, curious mind on their voyage of discovery and to challenge them to establish new connections in the field of textile. The students, who work in groups, are invited to use their own creative concepts and ideas. These can be developed using the advanced computer-driven textile machines and by making use of the newest materials. This stimulates innovation and the development of (technical) expertise and skills in the fields of textile design, fashion, and interior. The programmes promote the development and exchange of creativity and expertise among the students themselves and between the students and the product developers at the TextielLab.

Bea Nieuwenhuis, Head of Education & Communication, Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg

90 91 IV / Educational Programmes in the TextielLab educational programme The Shanghai Gesture exhibition workshop / master class presented the results of a workshop by fashion designer Alexander van Slobbe title for Dutch and Chinese designers as part Shanghai Gesture of the cultural programme for the World Expo in Shanghai. Afterwards, students designers from the Textile Department of the Gerrit TxT students and fashion Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam were asked to respond to this workshop by design graduates, Gerrit Rietveld designing and producing woven textiles. Academy, Amsterdam (NL) Research samples were developed using handlooms and the ripened designs Gerrit Rietveld TxT students were woven in the TextielLab. These Ellie Duinker, Isa van Gool, woven fabrics were passed on to seven Amsterdam-based fashion designers Eveline Keijser, Jasmin Koschutnig, in a second workshop. The coats, Elisabeth Leerssen, Caroline Lindo, which were co-created by the designers and the students, were presented Sylvia Wozniak, Nadine Gupfert at the Shanghai Gesture exhibition at fashion designers Museum Willet-Holthuijsen (part of the Amsterdam Museum). The general Kunji Baerwald, Niki Mens, theme for both workshops was coopera- Thera Hillenaar, Tessa Koops, tion, and in particular the exploration, use and exchange of Dutch and Chinese Xuena He, Lotte van Keulen, arts and crafts. The Golden Age formed Soepboer Stooker the inspiration for the workshops, which focused on techniques. technique weaving object category textiles, fashion presentation workshop at World Expo, Shanghai (CN); ‘Shanghai Gesture’ exhibition at the Amsterdam Museum, Museum Willet-Holthuijsen Amsterdam (NL) collection Amsterdam Museum, Museum Willet-Holthuijsen, Amsterdam credits Alexander van Slobbe, head design project and guest curator, Corné Gabriëls, assistant design, Joost Post, coordinator

92 Shanghai Gesture / Gerrit Rietveld Academy 93 IV / Educational Programmes in the TextielLab 94 Shanghai Gesture / Gerrit Rietveld Academy 95 IV / Educational Programmes in the TextielLab project name European Textile Trainees (ETT) theme Interconnections trainees & institutes Maria Sølvtofte, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design, Copenhagen (DK); Anna-Mari Leppisaari, Aalto University School of Arts and Design, Helsinki (FI); Julia Kortus and Friederike Guminski, Burg Giebichenstein, University of Art and Design Halle (DE); Margrethe Kolstad Brekke and Pia Antonsen Rognes, National Academy of the Arts Bergen (NO); Lien D’Haeseleer, Royal Academy of Fine Art (KASK), Ghent (BE); Lien van den Heuvel, Sint-Lucas, Visual Arts, Ghent (BE) industry partners Como Textile Industry / Servizi Industriali Srl., UICOMO (IT) techniques weaving, knitting, embroidery, laser technique, digital printing, tufting, braiding Pia Antonsen Rognes, Lien D’Haeseleer, These students constituted the fourth and compose a society. Mingle, engage Friederike Guminski, Lien van den class of the European Textile Trainees and get yourself connected. Why? object category Heuvel, Margrethe Kolstad Brekke, Julia programme, an initiative of the Textiel- And to what purpose? The class of 2011 samples, fashion, interior textiles Kortus, Anna-Mari Leppisaari and Maria museum. Working at the TextielLab is presented their personal interpretation Sølvtofte were the eight European Textile a highly important part of the time spent of this year’s theme by crossing borders, presentation Trainees who spent an intensive working in the Netherlands. This workplace is building structures and linking the past PlatForm, Audax period at the Audax Textielmuseum special because it allows for plenty of to the present. Tilburg and in Como in Italy in the room for trial and error: experimenting Having completed the Tilburg pro- Textielmuseum Tilburg (NL) autumn of 2011. For 12 weeks these and utilizing the machines, materials gramme, the trainees travelled to Italy ComON Creativity trainees, who did not initially know each and techniques to the full extent are together, where they did individual other, spent a lot of time with each other the basic principles. internships at various renowned textile Week (IT) and worked and lived together. Coming Every year, the work focuses on a theme. companies in Como and took part in from five different countries, the trainees This year’s theme was: Interconnections. the ComON Creativity Week. all have their own individual personalities It may simply be a word to trigger and backgrounds and share an immense a stream of thought, but it could also passion and interest for textile. They be considered an important theme were selected based on their talent in modern society. Similar to the way and skills, their thirst for knowledge threads are interwoven to compose a and the wish to share this knowledge. solid structure, people create networks

96 Shanghai Gesture / Gerrit Rietveld Academy 97 IV / Educational Programmes in the TextielLab ‘Being able to immediately work out ideas at the TextielLab by using the machines is a big advantage. It allows you to continually refine your design in the course of the process. Occasionally, something goes wrong when working out ideas on the machines but, as it turns out, this also leads to new and interesting developments.’

Lien D’Haeseleer, European Textile Trainee 2011

98 European Textile Trainees (ETT) 99 IV / Educational Programmes in the TextielLab educational programme Textile Minor title Tactility Inside Outside Textiles for the private or public space designers Bachelor students, Departments of Man & Identity and Man & Well Being Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), (NL) DAE students Rudi Boiten, Asnate Botschkis, Constanze Bückenlei, Matthijs Holland, Jan Pieter Kaptein, Jules van den Langenberg, Victoria Ledig, Lianne Pollinder, Matthijs Rikken, Saar Scheerlings, Kazia Zareba, Lissa Zengerink academy Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), (NL) technique various object category interior textiles presentation Design Academy Eindhoven

100 Textile Minor / Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) 101 IV / Educational Programmes in the TextielLab This day and age increasingly calls for visionary and expert designers who are able to crystallize their vision by using their expertise and technical understanding. At the same time, students at the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) also long for knowledge and strive to be able to ‘do’ more. The academy’s task is to anticipate market developments. While the DAE profiled itself as a ‘House of Concept’ over the last few years, the shift towards more attention for theory, knowledge and skills can be seen in education. Thinking in concepts is, as ever, the core of the design process, but greater knowledge and technical understanding allow for more possibilities to make products stronger and more interesting, to work more efficiently and to cooperate with producing parties.

The Textile Minor that, in consultation with the Textielmuseum, was started by the Design Academy Eindhoven in the academic year 2009-2010 and is retained in 2011 should be considered in light of the development mentioned above. Now that the third Textile Minor has taken place, the effects are very much noticeable. Various students had their work exhibited during the ‘Salone del Mobile’ in Milan 2011, a number of students obtained internships at specialised textile design studios, and big companies have expressed an interest in the work of the Textile Minor students. Additionally, those who took the minors became passionate about fibres, yarns, materials and colours, and their experiences in the industrial setting increased their confidence. The cooperation with other students and product developers was very valuable to them.

In the course of the 2011 minor, students of various DAE design departments developed a design concept with the theme ‘Tactility Inside Outside. Textiles for the private or public space’. In teams, they then worked on sets of knittings, woven fabrics, digital prints, laser cuts, passe- menteries and embroideries. The focus is on learning the complex constructive techniques of knitting and weaving, since industrial knitting machines and Jacquard looms are not available at the DAE. That’s why the students benefit from the facilities in the Textielmuseum and from the much-respected expertise of the product developers.

Saskia van Gelder, coordinating teacher at the Man and Identity Department, DAE

102 Textile Minor / Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) 103 X / Chapter Young Talent

More and more students and V recent graduates from fashion and design programmes in the Netherlands and abroad find their way to Tilburg. In their final year, they come to the TextielLab to work on their graduation collections. The TextielLab offers long-term internships to young international textile talents. At the Lab, the intern works on an assignment that is formulated in consultation with the product developers. The basic principle is that tangible research results remain at the Lab at the end of the internship. The interns are stimulated to make use of the museum’s library during their internship. This is a joint investment in the knowledge of both our employees at the Lab and the young textile talents.

104 105 V / Young Talent designer Eva Dunis (FR / BE) title T with Lawrence technique T with Lawrence was inspired of the 1920s that are evident embroidery by the designer’s visit to Syria. in the cut of the silhouettes, The mesmerizing embroidery Dunis refers to the French object category work and draping worn by the and English fabric traditions fashion Bedouins inspired this collec- of the period when Syria was tion. The highly intricate under the control of those academy cross-stitch embroidery and nations. The mixing of patterns Fashion Department complex patterns made by such as Liberty prints and the Bedouin women prompted Toile de Jouy allowed her to Royal Academy Eva Dunis to use embroidery reinforce the contrasts between of Fine Arts for her collection. The history the very different worlds of of the country was also a the Middle East and Western Antwerp (BE) great source of inspiration. Europe. The embroidery was Particularly inspiring was produced in the TextielLab T.E. Lawrence, or Lawrence of by both hand and machine. Arabia as others call him, who passed through the country when he fought in the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule between 1916 and 1918. By adopting the way of the Bedouin while also maintaining his British heritage, T.E. Lawrence created a unity of sorts. In addition to the British military traditions

106 107 V / Young Talent The young fashion designer Tom Nijhuis based his graduation collection on the Dutch Gabber designer designer culture. He was invited to intern at Nike because of his street- Britt De Groot (BE) Tom Nijhuis (NL) wise collection. The title 1995 title title refers to this alternative music and party culture’s heyday. DisAppear 1995 Nijhuis got involved at the early technique technique beginning and had a flawless understanding of the dress laser technique tufting, passementerie codes. ‘If you’re a gabber you’ve object category object category got a bomber jacket, Aussie, Nike Air Max, maybe a pair of interior textiles fashion jeans, and perhaps one of those academy academy Champion sweaters for the sake of variety. Clothing makes Royal Academy of ArtEZ, Arnhem (NL) it so easy to fit in. That’s what Fine Arts, Ghent (BE) presentation fascinates me.’ Nijhuis had two voluptuous white tops and loose presentation Fashion Show, ArtEZ sleeves that create a certain Graduation Show credits text contrast with the sporty look of the outfits tufted in the Royal Academy Anne Birthe Smit TextielLab. of Fine Arts Ghent (BE)

Britt De Groot worked at the TextielLab to develop her graduation collection and she was also an intern at the Lab. Her graduation collection of laser-cut fabrics is centred around the paradox that textile is ubiquitous in our lives, while also often forced into the background. She set herself the objective of designing textile that is visually attractive ‘By working independently and takes centre stage. The at the machines and also fabrics can function as spatial partitions in the interior. because of the whole team Depending on the spectator’s of product developers, during position, the incidence of light, and the position of the textile, my internship I developed myself forms will appear and disap- as a designer. The continual pear. This results in dynamic forms of textile: textile that exchanges concerning new evokes different impressions. developments at the TextielLab keep you stimulated. The positive energy that is prevalent at the Lab feeds the urge to design.’

Britt De Groot, TextielLab trainee

108 109 V / Young Talent designer Linda de Jong (NL) title Ethnique technique weaving, knitting object category fashion academy ArtEZ, Arnhem (NL) presentation Graduation Show ArtEZ

For her women’s wear graduation collection, Linda de Jong, a graduate of the fashion design department at ArtEZ in Arnhem, was inspired by the photographer Jackie Nickerson and Farm, her series of portraits of African women. She contrasted the simplicity and authenticity that emanates from the photos with the chic of Chanel. De Jong was particularly touched by a photo of a woman wrapped in plastic foil. The basic material for her collection is polypropylene (plastic, used for bin liners among other things). She experi- mented by melting the material, using it as a coating or extracting threads ‘In the Lab I worked together from it. When she came across plastic with Marjan van Oeffelt. She thread on a cone inside a storage room, she came up with the idea of helped me an awful lot and actually developing her own fabrics. She made gave me more ideas. Together, most of the fabrics for her graduation collection herself or in cooperation we looked at old weaving with the TextielLab. De Jong required techniques and patterns. With the fabrics to be of good quality, have a supple feel, and have a luxurious that in mind, we went to work.’ appearance, despite the plastic material. She also drew inspiration from classic Linda de Jong, British tweeds and other traditional ArtEZ graduate woven fabrics. ‘By using unusual material such as plastic together with other threads such as mohair and silk you get a very innovative appearance,’ the designer says.

110 111 V / Young Talent designer Kiyoshi Yamamoto (NO) title fool me, somewhere else… technique For his graduation project, He wanted to find out to what Kiyoshi Yamamoto, a former extent this background has weaving participant in the European tinged his perception of the object category Textile Trainees programme, landscape, people and places. delved into his cultural back- In his series of humorous wall interior textiles ground and the influence of hangings, he plays with motifs academy the various cultures that he has of all the places where he been exposed to. Yamamoto, has lived. The Nordic flora Bergen National a citizen of Norway with and fauna fuse together with Academy of the Arts Japanese roots, was born in motifs that refer to his native Brazil and lived in various country Brazil in a way that Norway (NO) places in Europe, which is both surreal and natural presentation influenced him in many ways. at the same time. Graduation Show, Bergen National Academy of the Arts (NO)

112 113 V / Young Talent designer According to Martine Bastings, investigation. Martine Bastings Martine Bastings (NL) reflecting on the essence is translated the William Morris becoming essential once again sketches into mere lines and title in this era of mass productions, pixels, which were then applied Stil Leven ‘reculer pour much like a painter does in to textile. The digital knitting a still life. Her collection of technique uses pixels: each mieux sauter’ knitted textiles stems from of the machine’s needles is technique an investigation into the directed by information linked interaction between digital and to a pixel. Both the colour that knitting traditional craft techniques, the needle must knit and the object category between simplicity and detail. technique or structure that By concentrating on simple should be applied to a specific interior textiles patterns she focused on location is a result of the academy aspects such as composition, design choice. colour and colour values. Royal Academy Sketches of floral motifs of Fine Arts (KABK) produced by the British Arts & Crafts artist William Morris in The Hague (NL) the late 19th century serve as presentation the point of departure for her Graduation Show Textile and Fashion tour KABK, The Hague

114 115 V / Young Talent ‘I wanted this pattern to be dynamic and full! I made a very big pattern, 1.40 metres high by 1.50 metres across. It was possible because of digital printing.’

Diane Lebel, graduate of ENSAV La Cambre, Brussels

designer Diane Lebel (BE) title TROM-A technique printing object category interior textiles Diane Lebel is the first student from fashion La Cambre in Brussels to have work academy realised at the TextielLab. Inspired by her experience at the design studio of ENSAV La Cambre the Balenciaga fashion house in Paris, Brussels (BE) she decided to develop a collection of prints. When mirror read, the title presentation of her TROM-A collection reveals the Graduation Show theme: A Mort, which means ‘until death’. During her research into the 2011, ENSAV death experience, and into various La Cambre, Brussels funeral services in particular, Lebel noticed that the bird is an oft-recurring symbol of the connection between life and death. It should be no surprise that the bird motif takes centre stage in her prints. In the TextielLab, Lebel experimented with the printing technique on various materials such as silk and cotton. She also reworked the prints by hand, by immersing them in water.

116 117 V / Young Talent designer Rowena Rutten (NL) title SKIN DEEP technique weaving object category interior textiles academy Academy of Fine Arts Maastricht (NL) presentation Graduation Show 2011 Academy of Fine Arts Maastricht

There is more to see and explore under ‘The Textielmuseum is a our skin. Our skeleton, tendons and creative and inspiring place, bundles of muscles make it possible for us to move. Our muscles where everybody meets each are comprised of thin, inter-connected other, from students to famous strips that run into each other. In her SKIN DEEP collection of interior textiles, designers. It doesn’t matter Rowena Rutten implemented her whether you’re a student or fascination for the life inside the human body, its structure and its materiality. a famous designer as every Her choices were also informed by the project is treated as a worthy thought that the interior serves as an extension of the body. The collection one. Every project is allocated includes plaids, room dividers and more than enough time as well.’ curtains.

Rowena Rutten, graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Maastricht

118 119 V / Young Talent designer Justine de Moriamé (BE) title ReCollection technique printing object category fashion academy ENSAV, La Cambre Brussels (BE) presentation Graduation Show ‘I really enjoyed working 2011, ENSAV with Frans. I would like La Cambre, Brussels to thank him for his models availability and his Lise & Nikki patience. Inspiration and make-up original ideas can be Marie Davin turned into concrete realizations through professional hands only.’

Justine de Moriamé, Justine de Moriamé’s ReCollection graduate of ENSAV comprises 12 silk jump suits with La Cambre, Brussels diverging print designs. Source of inspira- tion was a statement by the Spanish painter Salvador Dali: ‘The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.’ In her collection, Justine de Moriamé plays with this ambiguity of memories by mixing old and new, present and past, and real and fake. While many designers like to work at the machines in the Lab in order to make on-site adaptations, she managed to direct the complete working process through email. She had 20 different patterns printed in a varying number of meters, mostly on own material.

120 121 V / Young Talent designer Part of Willemijn van der Willemijn van Sloot’s graduation work at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy was der Sloot (NL) a series of household textiles. title The work consists of two parts: hand-embroidered table dagelijkse kost linen and woven tea towels. (everyday fare) Her aim was to mix traditional Dutch textile patterns, crafts- technique manship and contemporary weaving digital developments. While analyzing the three elements object category of her research, Willemijn household textiles van der Sloot realized that the traditional block pattern academy of a Dutch tea towel is almost Gerrit Rietveld Academy like a QR code. By changing the rhythm of the blocks it Amsterdam (NL) actually became a QR code. presentation ‘For me there are a lot of beautiful details in daily life.The Graduation Show 2011 short films that you see after Rietveld Academy scanning the code with your mobile phone focus on this Amsterdam aspect,’ explains Van der Sloot.

designer The Collecting Collections graduation Jasmijn Wester (NL) project, a textile trend forecast by Jasmijn Wester, comprises three title sub-concepts. Every trend concept Collecting Collections: features a different aspect of collecting and arranging: a colour (Re) Collection chart for the Fall/Winter 2012–2013 Greedy Selections season, an impression of the atmos- phere, and various textile designs The Germ of Creations that were developed using diverse technique techniques. Finally, the colours, atmosphere and textile converge weaving, laser technique, in design proposals and formal embroidery applications. Jasmijn Wester made use of the machines in the Lab to object category realise her textile designs. The textile trend first sub-concept (Re)Collection (see the photo) zooms in on the forecasting precision and the systematic aspect academy of collecting. (Re)Collection is characterised by its bright aura, Amsterdam Fashion sharp line work, and the perspectival Institute (AMFI) (NL) arrangement of the laser-cut patterns. Despite the precision of arranging, presentation a collection can, in some cases, Graduation Show end in total chaos. This is expressed in Greedy Selections, a spectacle 2011, AMFI of bright colours and forms. The Germ of Creations is derived from the instinctive protection of valuable possessions, a world behind glass.

122 123 V / Young Talent designer Karolina Piech (PL / BE) title ULTRA technique weaving object category fashion academy Fashion Department Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp (BE) photoshoot location Waterschei, Genk make-up Orla McKeating hair Ludovic Beckers presentation Graduation Show 2011 Fashion Department, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Karolina Piech graduated from the Fashion Department of the Antwerp academy. In her ULTRA collection, she juxtaposes suppressed poverty and reality in Poland in the period between the 1950s and 1989. She used images of weighing scales and food coupons as a pattern for the woven fabrics that she had realised in the Lab. One fabric was woven on a black-and-white warp, the other on an ecru cotton warp.

124 125 V / Young Talent designer Makiko Shinoda, a young the healthy cognitive Makiko Shinoda (JP / NL) Japanese designer, graduated development of young children, from DAE with various projects, because nowadays their title asking herself how we can nervous systems are distur- Material Teddy engage and stimulate our bed by a heavy exposure senses in our daily lives. The to artificial flavours, digital technique landscape of modern society images and plastic surfaces. knitting, various finds us increasingly discon- This contributes to a lack of nected from a rich sensory imagination, communication non-textile techniques experience. Smells, sounds, and spatial perception. The object category colours and textures are teddy, functioning as a sensory standardised, categorised and experience puzzle, is made object, toy controlled in urban life, thereby of various untreated natural academy eliminating all the subtle materials. The plissé knit of nuances and richness that one of the arms was made Design Academy exist in nature. Material Teddy using the Knit&Wear machine Eindhoven (DAE) (NL) is a toy meant to stimulate in the Lab. presentation Graduation Show 2011, DAE

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