Tambour Beading Workshop, Hand & Lock, London

http://www.handembroidery.com/

Recently I have been researching further into the phenomenal embroidery company, Hand & Lock London. The company create the world's finest embellished hand embroidery; specialising in couture techniques such as gold work, military design and couture embellishment- working with clients, fashion and interior based- for example The Royal Family, Mary Katrantzou and London Fashion Week clients.

Using my embroidery knowledge, I entered a writing competition via MasteredHQ (https://www.mastered.com/), and was chosen as the winner to work with Hand & Lock London in their Festival of Embroidery. With many courses to choose from, I decided upon Tambour Beading.

Tambour Beading, known as Broderie Chainette/ Broderie de Lunéville, is a French haute couture technique in which by using a tambour hook, the application of beads and sequins to fabrics is used. This technique is frequently used in many couture fashion houses- the technique, slow; the results, perfect. I have been interested in learning the art since my recent trip to NYC and seeing it applied by the American equivalent to the London company, Penn & Fletcher.

The course proved to be extremely enjoyable, not only for being able to learn a new skill, but also to be both in the Hand & Lock studio surrounded by so many years of embroidery beauty, and to be surrounded by professionals from the textiles industry.

The technique was extremely intricate, delicate and very very fiddly to grasp. Essentially, the technique involves using continuous chain stitch motions in order to attach each embellishment one at a time. Being the first time, I didn't get too far with my piece, and found out very quickly that one wrong stitch could result in pulling out every single bead (spent a while hunting for dropped sequins on the floor) but I slowly got the hang of it by the end of the course!

Tambour beading has been an invaluable skill to learn, something that many other students looking to go into the same textiles industry may not have as a skill, therefore boosting both my portfolio and cv applications. Hopefully I will be able to return to Hand & Lock London in the near future, whether this be for a placement experience or just another course, I'll have to wait and see! In the mean time I shall be practicing this art form and hopefully begin to incorporate the skill into my third year portfolio.

Manchester School of Art Fashion Degree Show

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152426333999738.1073741839.15095489737&type=1

Unit X Evaluation

"I am going into this college with an open-mind, and the knowledge that this unit is going to challenge and push me as far out of my comfort zone as humanly possible."

From the offset, I knew that the Blue Sky Thinking unit x option was going to be a real challenge for myself, and I was right. I chose this unit out of curiosity of doing something new; the theory of 'blue sky thinking' and limitless ideas appealed as an exciting concept. I knew that this was something that I would never usually think of doing, instead using material/ physicality as a starting point for my projects, as that is what I am comfortable and familiar with.

During the introductory weeks of the college, I really enjoyed all of the workshops and guest lectures that I was able to attend. Hearing from a range of different artists/ designers meant being open to a number of perspectives and responses of working in the real world, not just those of a textile background.

Unit X is predominantly about collaboration. I was apprehensive in regards to group work, mainly because of how disastrous last year's unit x grouping turned out to be, however I have to say that this year has been the exact opposite. Working within a large group of independent, creative students obviously holds a lot of room for a variety of perspectives, means of working and characters. With so many voices, it is easy to feel lost and confused about what is going on/ who is doing what etc, which did happen a numerous amount of times over the course. Having to constantly communicate with one another, practically on a daily basis, is a very intense, tiring ask. Most days I felt completely drained, and in need of re-energising, in time for our next group meeting. Putting all of my effort into communication meant that I often felt that I was unable to get on with any of my own individual practice, which really comes down to having a lack of time management.

In terms of collaborative practice, overall I have really enjoyed working alongside students from Interactive Arts. It has been nice to see our differences in perspectives and how we go about tackling situations/ our projects. It was obvious that the group was split between makers and thinkers, however now that the unit has come to an end, and I've had time to reflect, I believe that each of us hold the qualities of both 'a thinker' and 'a maker', just not necessarily of equal weightings. As well as forming new connections in the art practice, I feel that we have all become really good friends too. Being in such an intense environment, we have been through a lot together. I found that it was nice to meet outside of university environment in order to connect and create better friendships (with the occasional night out to let off steam).

Reflecting on my own practice; I have questioned myself and my ability frequently in this unit which has been both difficult and upsetting. Overall, I have realised that my strengths are firmly set in 'making' and physicality; a skill that I unfortunately allowed to be pushed aside for a number of weeks. I have enjoyed the aspect of photography- it is a skill that I have always enjoyed using, however very rarely bring into my practice, as I am always so focused on stitch. This unit has opened my eyes to the idea that there is SO much more out there that I wouldn't normally think about researching into, ideas that I have only managed to spark through listening to other people's concepts and skill bases. 

Alongside Unit X I have been taking part in work experience with artist, Alice Kettle. This is an ongoing work experience, that is opening a lot of possibilities for the future, something that I am really excited about (but am unfortunately unable to post on here at the moment). Working with Alice has meant I have been able to keep up with some embroidery work. Managing time between unit x and work experience opportunities has been similar to our Locating unit, managing time between our personal and live briefs- something that I have really enjoyed doing, and will most definitely continue to enjoy now that Unit X has come to an end.

Exhibition Set Up / Pitch

Setting up for our exhibition was great fun; It was lovely to see the group of us helping one another with the set up and layout. Myself and Claire kept to our textile roots- using our images and repeat patterns in collaboration. Our designs were being shown as visual outputs that could ultimately be used for the branding and visual merchandising of our design festival- used on items such as tote bags, posters, clothing etc. I like the idea of visual branding, allowing the audience to take part of the design festival away with them as a momentum. 

After setting up our exhibition, we had a short amount of time to practice for our pitch. Up until yesterday, it was decided that only two people would be speaking for the presentation however after consideration; and thinking that it may be intimidating for the panel to have nine extra bodies 'hanging around',  we thought it would be best to split the pitch into our different sections of working. Doing it this way around meant that we would be able to talk about our own pieces of work and our contribution to the design festival planning. I have never been a confident speaker, and became very nervous before hand. (let's say no more). After sorting out exactly what needed to be said, and having a motivational conversation with a few members of the textiles practice, I felt a little more confident, and overall, the pitch did go very well.

 Reflecting back to pre-pitch- feeling stressed out made me act extremely out of character, something that doesn't happen very often. I know that in the future delivering my ideas/ work to an audience is something that I will have to face a considerable amount of times. Talking about my own practice should be something to be passionate about, not worried. 

Design Festival Manifesto

Bringing back the ideas of the manifesto from our first weeks' of teaching to the final stages was something that I felt to be really important. The manifesto is used communicate our ideas for our Design Festival; for our audience to understand what our festival is about, and the key concepts that we followed in order to achieve our final output for exhibition. 

As previously mentioned, myself and Aine put ourselves forward for the writing and presentation of the  overall festival manifesto- I enjoy the written aspect of the piece, whereas Aine has great photoshopping skills- therefore using our strengths through collaboration, to achieve a positive outcome. Although the two of us had the overall say for the manifesto, prior to this, a group of us met to discuss the key words/ phrases / ideas that we felt needed to be included from over the duration of our research for this unit. Similarly to our wall of inspiration, it was nice to produce something collaboratively. 

Anya Gallaccio/ 'Preserving Beauty' Samples

'Gallaccio is known for her work with organic materials such as ice, flowers, fruits and sugar. Her installations often change over time as they melt, decompose or sprout new life. In preserve ‘beauty’ 2000 gerberas are sandwiched between huge panes of glass and left to wither and rot. Gallaccio has described gerberas as a ‘disposable commodity’, mass-produced all year round. Her work challenges romantic ideas of nature and culture, life and death. '

Taking inspiration from artist, Anya Gallaccio, I decided that it would be interesting to create samples using dandelions in a literal sense- trapping the flowers in between sticky-back plastic and letting nature take control. Over time, the flowers will begin to disintegrate, a process that is ongoing, alike to the concept of allowing our design festival to continue after the exhibition is over...

Regine Ramseier

'2,000 withered dandelion flowers hanging from the ceiling. A symbol of life and birth. A symbol of impermanence. Pause for a moment. Stop and breathe.'

http://www.regineramseier.ch

Stitching Colour into The City

I found myself 'doodling' sketches of dandelions one evening, in hope of gaining some kind of inspiration for fabric prints/ embroidery samples. The hexagons are a link to Manchester's emblem of the bumblebee, using the repeat pattern of honeycomb as a background to my work.

Using the ethos machine, I decided to translate the image of the dandelion into stitch. It was comforting to be back on the sewing machines, using my preferred practice alongside our group concepts. Using PVC- a strong, durable material- it was interesting to be stitching such a delicate design into it. Keeping to the idea of 'noticing', I felt that the over-baring background colour really helped the pattern to stand out. Using a repeat pattern, I could imagine this design to be used as merchandise of branding for our festival, possibly on bags, posters... 

... When speaking to Mark, he had the idea of using the PVC as a form of clothing, something that I hadn't thought of. My favourite part of collaboration is seeing how other's perceive your work and how it can inspire new, unthought of ideas.

Turning My Photographs into Fabrics

Thinking about past discussions that I have had with Fiona about weights and textures of fabrics, I began to experiment with different qualities of materials to print my photographs on to. Using heavy weight cotton, silks and acetate, it was interesting to see how the quality of the imagery was translated as a design. Different weights meant the vibrancy of colours altered, dependant on it's surface. The acetate when held again different backgrounds would produce an array of new perspectives for the photographs - similar to the principals of using filters. I am going to be using these photographs in our exhibition as examples to be used alongside the filter workshop.

"Do What You Love"

As I have mentioned throughout my blog posts, my strengths lye in the making process of my practice. The Blue Sky Thinking college involves constantly thinking, something that I usually do through materials/ sewing, not literally.... Well obviously I think, but the art of serendipity and experimentation is a huge role in our Textiles practice. 

I have been having a difficult time engaging with unit x, I don't know whether it is because I have chosen, not the 'wrong' college, but instead a college that is not suited to my style of working. I knew that this unit was going to be a challenge, that was made clear when discussing changing over groups, I guess I hadn't anticipated HOW difficult.. Working in larger groups has also proved to be a challenge; getting your voice heard and ideas across in a large group with large personalities can literally turn into 'who can shout the loudest', therefore instead of being my usual, upbeat confident self, I seem to have lost my voice. 

Not 'making' has also been a big problem up until now. Using all of my energy to meet up at least once daily with the group has left me feeling deflated most evenings, meaning instead of getting on with my usual making, I have just wanted to turn off all technology and relax. Being away from the studio, and instead in Federation House, means being away from the embroidery rooms, so finding time to get materials and sit and sew in between meetings has felt challenging to fit in.

Anyway, I managed to get myself all worked up and felt completely lost with both Unit X, and my practice in general. I know there's no point in getting upset, because that's when I hit this whirlwind of negative thoughts, which isn't going o help anything. Voicing my concerns instead of keeping them bottled inside proved the best thing to do. I was very touched by everybody's' concerns for myself, and managed to get in contact with the tutors and set up a meeting. 

Speaking to Mark and Kate really gave me the boost that I needed to get myself back on track. Speaking to Mark further about his and Fiona's trip to Milan Design Festival, it was refreshing to hear that for the time the design festival seemed to focus more on textiles based practice than it has in previous years. We spoke about bringing my embroidery practice into the design process, keeping to the concepts that had been discussed as a group. Why I hadn't done this from the start? I don't know. I had all of the research, just not the confidence to do so. I need to remember to do what I love, not what is seen as right to everybody else. 

Later in the week I was able to catch up with Fiona. Being my personal tutor for the past year, I felt much more settled when talking about my practice and how I'd be able to incorporate my skills into the project. We have always said that my work is most suited as fabric prints for fashion, therefore it is a possibility to use my photographs as a base fabric, and work into them. Also looking at materials and colours is something that we have spoken about greatly over the past year, so doing something with these could be interesting. 

Although still feeling unsure about the project, I feel much calmer work-wise and feel as though I have had the confidence boost that I needed to get on with some physical work .

Collaborative Wall of Inspiration

Taking into consideration our discussion about colours and materials, we decided that for our next session at Federation House it would be interesting for us all to each collect different materials/ objects focusing on our colour palette/ concept, and create a wall of inspiration, giving us a chance to see how we all approach the brief through physical objects. This was a fantastic idea. It was a means of group collaboration, and really showed how far we have come with the unit- not only over the past month, but also how greatly we have progressed in the last week too. Seeing our process as a physical output was comforting, as in relation to my own practice, I usually begin my research with a series of mood boards, trying to highlight my intentions for textures, colours and themes.
Summing up the past week, I feel as though each of us have began looking at our strengths, and using them now to our advantage. We have all become extremely pro-active in our studies, experimentation and making over the past week, through encouragement from our tutors, and a sense of the project 'coming together'. 

imagery: dandelions. yellow. posters. plastic bottles. photographs. raw materials. 

Tutorial and Final Discussion Regarding Roles/ Themes

Showing the photographs that I had collected over the past week in tutorial reached a positive response. I was proud of how they had come out, especially some of the colours that had been brought to life through the use of mirroring/ the sunshine. In terms of where to take them next, I think that I would like to turn them into a physical object, possibly fabrics or repeat patterns, but I'm not sure where that will fit into our exhibition at this point in time...

I have been feeling really lost in terms of where I 'fit' into the roles for our Design Festival. Assigning key jobs/ roles to individuals has really helped to see where it is that people are enjoying working, and to see where possible collaborations may be able to form in the last few weeks of the project.  As we are in such a big group, it has been difficult keeping up with exactly what everyone is up to, so getting it written down was really helpful. 

I'd placed myself into the roles of manifesto writing, making filters/ photographing and possible projections, as I felt as though these were where my strengths would lye. Saying this, I still felt as though these 'roles' were unable to define exactly what it was that I wanted to make for our exhibition. I really enjoy photography, a skill that I am constantly using. I simply just didn't want to 'take photographs', I want to do something more with them, what that is, I still haven't decided. This does make me feel a little uneasy about the coming weeks' worth of work. I feel I need to take myself away from the group and focus on what it is that I enjoy doing, possibly looking back at my previous unit sketchbooks ad looking at how I can incorporate my practice into this unit of work.

Looking Up/ Continuation of Noticing

Myself and Claire decided that it would be a nice idea to spend the day gaining inspiration from the city through photography. We went out with the aim to 'notice the unnoticed' and 'appreciating what already exists'. As we have spoken a lot about how people in the city seem to only ever look straight forward (or at their mobiles), we decided to approach the day by looking both up and down, and seeing what treasures we would be able to stumble across. I also found some more interesting places to continue with the the photography concepts that myself and Kim had been looking at. 

Whilst taking our photographs, it was apparent that our sub-consious was focusing on all things yellow. When you start noticing, it's really hard not to see the colour. It is everywhere. At bus stops, street signs, the tram and buses, lights, shop signs.. the list goes on. 

We spoke in detail about the ways in which we may be able to collaborate, as we are both interested in keeping to the physicality process in this unit. Thinking about how we could display our photographs, we thought about possibly using the pieces as fabrics, or framed pieces. We also spoke about visually displaying our photographs- whether this be through projection, videos, or hanging. It was a really lovely day.

Noticing the Unnoticed/ Framing the City

'Noticing the Unnoticed' is definitely the strongest concept that I have gained inspiration from during our group meetings. I feel that it is essential to have physical evidence to support these big statements, therefore took the opportunity with fellow textiles member, Kim, to go out and put our concept to the test. Every day we walk from A to B; taking in nothing other than the weather, or possible places to socialise.  

Using our concept as a starting point we decided that photographs would be the strongest evidential output that we could take from our trip. We decided to focus on the Northern Quarter- a place of mystery and artistic magic around every corner. Instead of sticking to the main roads, we took our adventures to places of hidden alleys and unusual paths, just looking. From my Easter research; looking to graffiti for inspiration had become a daily habit, alongside 'noticing' the strange places in which dandelions/weeds decided to place themselves. Taking influence from filters and other forms of image editing, we decided to use mirrors/ mirrored card in a way to distort the images, and create something unusual, and as a result came away with some very beautiful shots (if I do say so myself). 

I have really incorporating photography into our work today- it is a skill that I play with a lot in my spare time. The colours that have evolved from these pictures are interesting- especially the impact of the mirrored greys in contrast to the dandelion's yellows/ greens. 

Meeting: Colour, Material, Sponsors

It is proving very helpful meeting as a group as often as possible, as it means that we are able to discuss how we are getting on with the project, and and uncertainties that we are having. This morning we tried to pin down all of the ideas that have discussed over the past few weeks. The main concepts that we are working towards; 

changing perceptions. the dandelion. appreciating what already exists. negatives to positives. viewing the city in a different light. 

For the first time we also spoke about potential sponsorships that we could have for our design festival, as well as all of the companies/ schemes that are already in place in Manchester. Design/ art is everywhere.

As textiles students, we are constantly encouraged to think about materials and colour schemes as part of our practice. During our Locating Unit, myself and most of the textiles members in the group took part in Fiona's colour workshop, which proved very insightful and enjoyable. Taking inspiration from this day, we have found that having a colour/ material scheme is going to be essential in the process of creating physicality for our design festival. 

YELLOW: dandelions. happy colour. vibrant. sense of life, sunshine. 

GREY: reference to manchester's buildings. the sky/ weather connotations. 

RAW MATERIALS: as we are using the dandelion as a concept, sticking to raw materials will be a nice link to simplicity. brown paper, cotton, red brick. 

Milan Design Festival 2014

KEY THEMES:

textiles techniques unexpectedly making an appearance. creation of environments. telling stories/ creating themes. collective dinners: interaction and communication through food. signposting. 

MOOOI: 'the unexpected welcome' I am excited by this designer; using idyllic backdrops alongside their furniture in attempt to create an atmosphere. This idea could be translated around Manchester, using forgotten spaces in a creative, new way- in order to bring out the lost beauty of the city.

DEDON: creating an environment through surface. laser cutting. idea of pattern, structure and decor. I like the cleanliness of the white, with the layering of laser designs. Building up of layers is something that I enjoy doing through my own practice, so to see it on a large scale is inspiring.

Sarah Turner Bottle Research

'Sarah Turner is an award winning eco artist & designer making beautiful lighting & works of art from waste plastic bottles... Sarah's designs prove that... "just because a product is made from rubbish, it doesn't mean that it needs to look like it does!"'

http://www.sarahturner.co.uk

All of the bottles that Sarah uses in her work are collected locally and then reincarnated into a new life. Through techniques such as dying, cutting and sandblasting, the designer takes to the challenge of sculpting the bottles from a piece of 'useless rubbish', into a final product- something of great beauty and appreciation. 

I am interested in the concept of changing materials in a new and different way, alike to our design festival concept- changing the perceptions of the city from negative to positive . As well as the concept, this example of work works well with my chosen route of research: addition of colour to the city. As we are looking at dandelions, the examples above work to a similar colour scheme to our chosen colour palette for this unit. 

Plastic Bottle Workshop

Plastic bottles. An item that is accessible to all; carried around in our bags and then thrown away at leisure. As we had been speaking greatly about recycling and waste in the city, we felt that plastic bottles would be an interesting object to work with in a short amount of time.

The photographs before have been taken from around the Manchester School of Art. Reading the statistics, 27.5% of the waste found around campus is from plastic bottles, by far the highest waste product from the University.

The aim of the workshop was to de- and reconstruct the bottles, using a selective amount of tools, into an object of our choice. It was enjoyable to do an exercise that allowed us to all communicate and work as a group together, also to see how, as Textiles and Interactive Arts students, we engaged with the workshop differently. As a maker, I found it easy to engage with the 'making' and experimentation of the task, only made difficult by cutting my finger in the first few minutes of the workshop (we did say that the workshop could be dangerous for children). In comparison, it was apparent that some of the Interactive Arts students found it challenging to be given an object and be told to 'do' something with it, leading to frustration and annoyance. It just shows that people work differently. 

Banksy 'Mobile Lovers'

I adore Banksy. Even more so after his new mural was revealed to the world: Mobile Lovers. This piece I believe, captures life nowadays perfectly; instead of having relationships with people, we have relationships with technology, keeping in touch with each from behind a screen. People no longer engage with one another, with the world, with life. 

Whilst travelling into the city centre this morning, there were 46 people on the bus, 38 of which were looking at their mobile screens.  I'm sure that the other 8 people would have been doing the same if they hadn't been toddlers in their prams, or pushed up against the glass of the bus. It is disgusting. What has happened to the times that we used to sit and talk to one another, without the distraction of Facebook or text messaging? Yes, I am contradicting myself as I too am guilty of spending too much time looking at videos of sneezing pandas instead of getting on with life, but just think, if we were to put down all technology and interact with the world, how much we could achieve and how proud of ourselves we could be. 

Lomography Wall

As social media continues to appear in our group discussions, we have been trying to think of a way that it would be possible to incorporate media into our design festival, in a positive sense. We all enjoy taking photographs and focusing on the concept of viewing in the city in a new light, I feel it would be nice to combine the two. During Unit X last year, I came across the lomography wall based in the city centre. The wall is made up of a collage of photographs, layered together to create an overall beautiful object in the city. Somehow it would be a lovely idea to combine any photographs that we may take through the duration of our unit, but also any photographs that may be taken as a result of our exhibition. We spoke about having certain #hashtags that could be used on exhibition night, in order to easily group together all of our photographs. 

Discussion After Easter

We organised a group meeting for the first day back after the Easter holidays, in order to discuss our individual research from the past three weeks before tomorrow's tutorial. It was nice to see everybody's' different responses to research- thinkers and makers combined- and to discuss how we could now begin to translate our research into physical work. 

COLLABORATION: all have our own individual approaches towards one concept.
MANIFESTO: we thought that it would be nice to revise the manifesto workshop, and create our own manifesto for our design festival. Although we think it's nice for us all to contribute, I am interested in writing the manifesto, as is Aine so we shall do this together at a later date.
SIGNPOSTING: using stickers to promote the festival. graffiti. clean graffiti. looking at where design is already apparent.
VIEWING THE CITY: different approaches to 'viewing' the city. spoke about mirrors, filters for cameras, videos. looking up and down.
SOCIAL MEDIA: nowadays everybody uses social media, there's no running away from it. creating a twitter/ instagram feed for our festival means that people that are unable to take part in the festival, they could contribute via social media.
ACCESSIBILITY: the design festival should be accessible to all. As it is regarding Manchester, it doesn't mean that the festival should be restricted to those that live here.

After the meeting I was feeling slightly deflated, mostly because of taking in so much information in a short space of time. Now that we've had the meeting, I don't feel as though I can get on with any work until we've been to Federation House and had a tutorial with our tutors. I am looking forward to seeing the space that we will be working in for the next couple of the weeks, however it's annoying that we will be away from the comfort of our studio, and the embroidery workshops...

Kevin McCloud's Supersized Salvage

"Kevin McCloud challenges three designers to turn one plane - an Airbus A320 - into hundreds of amazing new products in a giant upcycling experiment. Their task is to find a new use for every single piece of the plane, leaving only an empty hangar behind them...

...The office pods and desk lamps, rickshaws and rocking chairs, luggage, storage and even jewellery that they fashion from this fallen giant will prove - in a spectacular and sustainable way - that creativity is a genuine solution to Britain's waste crisis...

..It's not just the size of this challenge that makes it tough; to master it, the designers need endless ingenuity, patience and the entrepreneurial skills and sales patter to sell their sometimes outlandish creations. It's a transformation on an unprecedented scale and Kevin's largest recycling project to date. If they can pull it off they'll prove that the sky's not the limit...."

 http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kevins-supersized-salvage/4od

Theresa Himmer

"Theresa combines art and architecture in a personal way and her creations, mostly site specific, interact perfectly with the big city life, New York. She is constantly experimenting with her art, without ever losing the ability to communicate with the surrounding space. After all, as she reveals, she is more inspired by the physical and cultural environment that is surrounding her rather than inner imagination"

http://www.yatzer.com/theresa-himmer-yatzer

Adding Colour to the City

In an ideal world I'd be allowed to take my paint brush and throw bright beautiful paints all around the  city, but unfortunately in Manchester I would end up in prison. Simple ideas.

LEGO: Looking at cracks in the walls and filling them in, an interesting and quite common example being pieces of lego (there is actually some examples around the Manchester School of Art campus)

THE INDIAN HOLI FESTIVAL: also known as 'the festival of colours', holi festival is a Hindu tradition- I am interested in the use of colour- with participant literally showering the city streets with paint, bring the pavements and streets to life.

STREET ART: The given example is by Mademoiselle Maurice; through use of colourful origami, she is able to liven up a usually dull urban environment. The colours also holding room for social engagement- 'what is it, what is it doing there?'

Collaboration: The Rug Company & Alexander McQueen at Milan 2014

I am already so very jealous of Mark & Fiona's trip to Milan Design Festival this week, however seeing this on Facebook makes me even more green-eyed. 

Collaboration between The Rug Company & Alexander McQueen at the Salone Del Mobile. After visiting The Rug Company earlier this year in NYC, I knew that McQueen already worked alongside the company, however to collaborate like this is something new and unique for the both of them.

http://www.therugcompany.com/blog/2014/the-rug-company-alexander-mcqueen-at-milan-2014/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=McQueen%20in%20Milan

Fashion & Textiles Museum London

ARTIST TEXTILES PICASSO TO WARHOL:

SARAH CAMPBELL:

Guerilla Gardening

Guerilla gardening isn't a new technique, it is the way that it is used as a concept and translated into physicality that makes it beautiful. Living in a rural area, and a village that is all about 'green', guerrilla gardening is a concept that I have grown up appreciating. 

My Dad and I are part of the village collective allotment- a scheme that was set up a few years ago in order to create collaboration and interaction between the village. We have our own large plot, and grow all of our own produce, which I love love love doing. And being a creative body, I have in fact planted flowers into old boots, teapots and other odd items (alike to those pictured below). 

Anyway, guerrilla gardening is a lovely, and easy concept that could be done by anybody, especially on a budget. If everybody in Manchester used this concept, it could instantly bring life and beauty to the city. 

http://www.annagarforth.co.uk/work/grow.html

Hélio Oiticica's Tropicália

'In Tropicália he aimed to topple universalising ideas of Brazilian culture by addressing the problem of the image, setting two of his shanty-like 'Penetrables' in a tropical scene with sand, pebbles and macaws, one of them a claustrophobic labyrinth whose single dark corridor leads to a television set. Eden (1966), in which one steps on sand, crushed brick and straw through favela-like enclosures, avoided imagery, but Tropicália's ideas had been unleashed.'

Hélio Oiticica's Tropicália has become of great inspiration for my unit x starting research. Oiticica's installations create engagement through use of space, encouraging the audience to immerse themselves and participate in their space- a concept that has been emerging through both collaboration with the interactive arts practice, and our research into design festivals.

'Oiticica's still-powerful and influential installations are the beating heart of 'Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazillian Culture', the first exhibition dedicated to the array of vibrant nonconformist tendencies associated with Tropicalism'

I am hugely inspired by the principal of adding colour to the city. I enjoy Oiticaca's use of fluorescent, over-baring colours and textures to replicate this concept, the arrangement of the artificial vs. the natural, forcing the viewer to engage with the piece. I feel this appeals to myself as a textiles student as it is familiar territory- looking at a physical 'made' space, rather than conceptual ideas. Addition of colour to a space is something that I am interested in looking at for our design festival. I am going to continue research into colouring the city through the physical.