'Neighborhood Colour' Exhibition by Stage 2 BA Textile, 2009

Stage 2 BA Textile Exhibition: ‘Neighborhood Colour’

The exhibition was great, well presented with interesting ideas, beautiful designs for fashion and interiors. It helped me to shorter my choice of pathway and get better idea of what I want or don’t want to do.
The project description helped me to understand the task that students were overcoming and follow the ideas that were brought to the surface.
My favorite designs were in print and knit. I made lot’s of pictures and talked to a few students about their work, what challenges did they have, what helped them to make a choice, how did they come with such an idea and what was the process of producing the final piece. I looked through the sketchbooks to see what research students did, how they presented their work and also to get few ideas for myself.
It was hard to say weather or not the strategies for improved sustainability have been addressed creatively. Because looking at the design outcome does not tell you that a designer used less chemical colour or maximized energy efficiency in process of production. But you could guess that a product has a long-life design features and multi-functional features to reduce materials in production. But I am pretty sure that students considered those moments and tried to apply them into design and production.

My favorite print was made by Nicola Schofield, it’s about a story of the street. Here is her quote: ‘The inspiration for my project came from camera obscura and pinhole cameras. I made a pinhole camera had tried to capture the movement and vibrancy of street life like on Oxford Street. I then projected these images on different surfaces and objects and re-photographed them. My final piece is composed of images printed on fabric with a short film projected over that represents the effect of camera obscura.’
I liked that the images were very colourful, with liquefied effects, transparent, but able to show some parts of the image that helps a viewer to build a story. I liked how she put one print behind another and looking through the top image you could see the background and together it built a nice picture of a person on the street. She also presented lo’t of experimental prints to support her idea.

I also liked knit design of the tops. There were 5 knitted tops presented on the second floor. I made a note about a student who designed it, but it was lost, so I can’t give a background of the story at the moment. Her tops were very delicate, beautifully cut in different ways with see through graphic prints and colors. It is something I would consider to buy and wear by myself, it fits my stile.

There were few designs that I found interesting, unique, very well presented and different from everybody else.
First was a table with a table cover, napkins and plates custom made. There were 2 books on the table with printed pages, showing the growth of the plants, trees and flowers. If you flip the pages very fast you would see the movement, the growing tree that ends up with a beautiful drawing printed on the last page. The same print was used for the table and everything that was on it.

Second design was very much man-like. Obviously made by a male student. Henry Muller called his work ‘distorted shadow’, drawing inspiration from London’s architectural landscape. He played with misdirection and distortion of light, the depth it creates through vast gradient shadows by representing it in a hectic yet clear geometric way. That student made a large white fabric with 3D landscape shapes and than projected his geometrical drawings using quick images that change each other every 30 seconds.

I also liked the work of Haruka Miyamoto, which was a result of a progression of concepts and ideas based on South London, particularly the Peckham and Camberwell areas. Haruka has been influenced by African hairstyles, the experimentation with braids, plaits, weave, knots and dyes. She explored plated fibres, wigs, strands of vivid colors varying in shade, the order and pattern of the braids. This student has very strong detailed drawings and beautiful work. I was impressed with her hand-made shoes, where she used different color threads to show the movement of the color. Delicate hard work.