Slow Summit lectures this Friday

The TFRC/Craftspace Slow Summit Open Lecture is this Friday and we are looking forward to seeing Alastair Fuad-Luke and Helen Carnac's presentations. There are still places available for the lectures which are taking place at 272 High Holborn, Friday 8th July at 10:30am.

The event is co-curated by Becky Earley and Helen Carnac, and examines the emergence of the Slow Movement, within a context of design, making and art practice. The two guest speakers will map out the ground that this new creative thinking occupies, both addressing the theory and the practice, as well as the local/global economics and politics that fuel the movement.

Slow Summit Open Lectures

The fourth event in the 2011 TFRC Open Lecture series, run in conjunction with Craftspace, is the Slow Summit, on July 8th with Prof. Alastair Fuad-Luke and Prof. Helen Carnac.

The event is co-curated by Becky Earley and Helen Carnac, and is an Open Lecture followed by an invitation-only workshop session. The event examines the emergence of the Slow Movement, within a context of design, making and art practice. The two guest speakers will map out the ground that this new creative thinking occupies, both addressing the theory and the practice, as well as the local/global economics and politics that fuel the movement.

Prof. Alastair Fuad-Luke is a renowned sustainable design theorist and writer and author of Design Activism, the Eco Design Handbooks and newly appointed Professor at Aalto University, Helsinki.

Prof. Helen Carnac is a maker, writer and curator of Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution, an touring exhibition from Craftspace.

The Open Lectures will be at 272 High Holborn, Lecture Theater, 10:30am - 1pm.

Mike Press podcast

Mike Press - Handmade Knowledge, March 25th 2011 from Textiles Environment Design on Vimeo

The recent lecture given by Mike Press at Chelsea College of Art & Design, as part of the TFRC Sustainable Textiles Seminars is now available as a Podcast, also available here.

Craft isnt soft!

We hosted Prof. Mike Press last Friday for the TFRC Sustainable Textiles seminar series. We had a great turn out with over 100 people attending. Titled 'Handmade Knowledge', Mike talked about the value of craft, as not only being embedded in the finished object, but in knowledge of processes, materials and ways of thinking that can be applied to other contexts and disciplines.

He talked in the context of the current university and government cuts, where most emphasis is being put on STEM subjects - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, and the value and strength of 'soft' subjects like craft. He showed how craft defies this 'soft' label by highlighting the work of crafts people who had radically impacted on culture through their thinking and making. A podcast of Mike's talk with his presentation will be available soon once we have finished editing.

Sustainable Textiles Research Seminar

Prof. Mike Press, will be speaking at the TFRC Sustainable Textiles Research Seminar series. It will be an Open Lecture titled 'Hand-made Knowledge' on 25th March in the Chelsea College of Art & Design, Lecture Theatre, 2 - 3pm.

Mike is Associate Dean of Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design and has written and researched widely on design, innovation, contemporary craft and the management of creativity. He has authored three books, including The Design Agenda: a Guide to Successful Design Management and The Design Experience. His research and writing spans three areas: design and crime, the future of craft, and co-design. He is also an experienced supervisor and examiner of PhDs in design, and has been an advocate of practice-based approaches to design research.

Most recently he has been involved in a scoping project to develop a design school in Rwanda.

Image left: Mike Press
Image right: Kntted Remotes, Hazel White

We are proud to announce that TFRC member Suzanne Lee has recently been made a TED Fellow. This is a highly prestigious position and it means Suzanne will become part of the global TED community and will be invited to the annual US conference which is next month, which has the theme of 'The Rediscovery of Wonder'. TED was set up by serial thinker and writer Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, Free: the Future of a Radical Price and editor of Wired magazine. It’s a regular series of conferences and talks that are disseminated on-line and watched by millions of people around the world. TED stands for Technology Environment Design and is promoted as a ‘platform for the spread of new ideas’.

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, the more humble sustainable textile design research cluster at Chelsea College of Art and Design - TED (Textiles Environment Design) - has been in existence since 1996, working away on a number of design strategies to help designers make more informed decisions. Whilst our TED group may not have such a global following, it is increasingly being mistaken as an adjunct of the US TED, which is extremely flattering if not confusing! However, with our new website due to launch shortly - that will host all the latest audio/video resources and international workshop concepts generated by this group of researchers - the TFRC rebranded textiles TED will hopefully also begin to make a more global impact as well!

Eco textiles show in Tilburg

Fashion made from recycled polyester? A chair made from resin and flax fibres? A machine powered by solar energy that produces textile objects?

The work of several TFRC members is currently on show in reTHINK!: Eco Textiles at the Audax Textile Museum in Tilburg, Holland. The show is an overview of the lifecycle of textile production from a sustainability point of view and includes the work of independent designers as well as commercial textile companies from the Netherlands.

The work on show originates from the three-year upcycling textiles research project led by Becky Earley at TED/CCW, where a group of textile designers were asked to explore recycling through four interconnected themes - systems and services design; short life/long life; ethical production and new technologies.

On show at Tilburg is one of Becky Earley's upcycled polyester TOP 100 shirts, (below)from her Template Collection, where she created new transfer prints for old polysetr shirts through hand -drawn and painted marks.

Mel Bowles is showing her Wallpaper Dress,(below) a project exploring themes of customisation, co-design and emotional durable design, where a found pattern is transformed into a treasured and unique garment using local resources, skills and bespoke digital printing.

Clara Vuletich is showing her Love & Thrift coat (below) a garment that addresses aspects of both material and emotional durabulity.

Kate Goldsworthy (CSM) is showing a new garment (below) made using laser technology to re-invigorate polyester. Kate is also running a one day workshop on using laser technology for upcycling at the Museum, on January 28th.

There is a good review of the show in Dutch site Design.nl.