american tapestry biennial 2017

decreasing our environmental footprint

detail wallhanging  'motherhood': ida brookhart
picture: rachel schraven

Buy Vintage / Consignment: YES. Vintage, consignment and second hand ARE ethical + conscious + sustainable options! Apart from wearing what’s already in your closet, or borrowing from a friend, this is the best option for buying something “new”, or new to you at least. Not only can you get high quality or even luxury pieces at affordable prices by shopping second hand, you can also cycle in “on trend” or “was a trend and is a trend again” options easily. Buying used is always better than buying new when it comes to decreasing our environmental footprint. 👣

Learn to Repair: So chic. Do you have pile of stuff sitting in a bag somewhere, just waiting to have a hem fixed or a new button sewn on? Here’s another fun Earth Day activity for you: research a seamstress, take yourself and your stuff there, and invest a little bit to get those items back into rotation! Or DIY and maybe even add a fab patch or two. 🌺🐯🌺 (project Just)

armor | heringa/van kalsbeek | rafelranden van schoonheid

yinka shonibare, (textile) artist

sculpture: butterfly kid 2015; 
textile design by Marjan de Groot 
picture : stephen white

(Textile) artist Yinka Shonibare (1962) was born in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study Fine Art.
Shonibare’s work explores issues of race and class through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and film. Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions.

His trademark material is the brightly coloured ‘African’ batik fabric (wax-printed cotton) he buys in London. This type of fabric was inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a new sign of African identity and independence.

Shonibare was a Turner prize nominee in 2004, and was also awarded the decoration of Member of the ‘Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ or MBE, a title he has added to his professional name.

standbeeld vis met plastic

Dit bijzondere standbeeld van een vis, dat gemaakt is met plastic uit de zee gevist. 

Het kunstwerk, dat van een onbekende kunstenaar is, staat in de haven van Helsingor in Denemarken.

history of textile art: gunta stölzl (1897-1983)

'slit tapestry red/green' 1928

History of textile art: Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983):

Gunta Stölzl was a German textile artist who played a fundamental role in the development of the Bauhaus school’s weaving workshop. As the Bauhaus' only female master she created enormous change within the weaving department as it transitioned from individual pictorial works to modern industrial designs. Her textile work is thought to typify the distinctive style of Bauhaus textiles. She joined the Bauhaus as a student in 1920, became a junior master in 1927 and a full master the next year. She was dismissed for political reasons in 1931, two years before the Bauhaus closed under pressure from the Nazis.

The textile department was a neglected part of the Bauhaus when Ms. Stölzl began her career, and its active masters were weak on the technical aspects of textile production. She soon became a mentor to other students and reopened the Bauhaus dye studios in 1921. After a brief departure, Stölzl became the school's weaving director in 1925 when it relocated from Weimar to Dessau and expanded the department to increase its weaving and dyeing facilities. She applied ideas from modern art to weaving, experimented with synthetic materials, and improved the department's technical instruction to include courses in mathematics. The Bauhaus weaving workshop became one of its most successful facilities under her direction. (wikipedia)

berlin alternative fashion week 2016 - justyna koeke

Justyna Koeke lives and works in Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart and Krakow. Her work resides at the intersection between performance, fashion and sculpture. She creates handmade textile, wearable sculptures and uses them for performances in different contexts. The artist presented her latest collection "Princesses and Saints" at BAFW in March 2016. The colorful costumes' designs are based on drawings from her own childhood and were worn by elderly woman.

Berlin alternative Fashion Week is a platform showcasing the rise of alternative concepts in fashion. They promote influential, genre-breaking innovators from around the world and connect them with established contemporaries in the fields of fashion, music and art.