Multifunctional Materials Design Research Group
Jaana Vapaavuori, Laura Koskelo, Maija Vaara, Mithila Mohan, Pedro Silva, Zahra Madani
Conceptualizing Textiles as Active Elements Around Us
This exhibition showcases how dynamically moving textiles can be realized through the interlacement of thermoresponsive active yarns and conventional yarns that construct the textile architecture. Through different textile designs, minute movement of the active yarns can be translated into large-scale motion of the fabrics – allowing opening and closing of pores, or flat surfaces deforming into 3D landscapes, for example. The kinetic response of the fabrics to changing temperatures presents a visual and tangible narrative of the unseen invisible ever-changing environment. Furthermore, active textiles and the complex movement patterns that can be written into them will create new possibilities of narration, self-expression, and performance.
This exhibition is based on interdisciplinary research work involving contributions from physics, crafting, materials engineering, and textile design. By working parallel both employing methodologies from these various disciplines, as well as working – at the same time – at different levels of hierarchy of textile construction can help us to reimagine, materialize and finally realize new textiles concepts and their changing aesthetics.
