Design / Art / Craft

“Cross disciplinary by default”

My practice is based on three different backgrounds.
1. Weaving apprenticeship CRAFT
2. Product Design degree in Textiles DESIGN
3. MFA in Fibres ART

Those feed now into my fourth experience
4. Lecturer in Art and Design EDUCATION and RESEARCH

In my practice I have always been interested in technical and material innovations and their connections with traditions as well as their consequences for the future of our societies. I have been working as studio assistant, teaching assistant, designer of stage props, exhibition coordinator, artist, weaver, technician, student, managing designer and part and full time lecturer. This caused collaboration with professors, directors of theatre plays, artists, electrical engineers, computer engineers, researchers, technicians, students, scientists and architects and many others. Working in the field of textiles and art made me travel to Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Finland, Mongolia, Italy, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

12 years after my graduation in Design I moved to New Zealand where I am the head of the Textile Department at the Dunedin School of Art. Before that I researched at XS Labs with Johanna Berzowska as the main investigator. Her work is positioned in the field of smart materials and intelligent textiles and during that time I was involved in computerized weaving and embroidery and researched the construction of textiles which have electronics embedded into them. Also I am interested in the cross-cultural approach of knowledge exchange as I experienced it in teaching a summer school in Mongolia in 2001. Recently I gave a workshop with Maori master weaver Rokahurihia Ngarimu Cameron at a conference for Innovation in Aboriginal Art in Canberra at the Australian National Museum.

It is often difficult to work between Craft, Art and Design since many practitioners in those fields seem to have the need to be strictly distinguished from each other. Practitioners in other fields I collaborated with have often a very poor knowledge of textiles. Once they understand that it is not just about their knitting grandmothers (even though I would regard them highly), there is a big curiosity for each other as well. My work is not purely Art OR Design OR Craft but is informed by all these fields. Neverthesless it has been regarded for its high quality by practitioners in either of those fields. I like to celebrate textiles for what it is – a field of immense innovation and potential for functionality, expression and creativity!