Personal statement about ‘something 3 Dimensional’

I studied textile design at the University of East London, graduated in June, 2011 with BA (HONS). I started an ambitious project during my BA where I was looking into the creation of new textile materials and creating decorative functional items from reclaimed materials. I had developed some sustainable product ideas and was quite fascinated at the results and the great potential they had. Some of the products required more research and others were still on the draft board, in a manner of speaking.

After my graduation, I was preoccupied with how to realize my dreams of creating finished sustainable products, which would require that I start a studio where I could do my research work and creative practice. But I felt that I wasn’t equipped enough to be able to efficiently take up this mammoth task of running my own studio and making sustainable products alongside prints. The ostensible thing for me to do was to enrol for a Masters’ degree to fulfil these requirements and boost my confidence.

My initial thoughts for the module was to carry on from where I stopped after my BA, research, develop and create new ideas revolving around sustainability, and apply this to my creative practice. Due to my textile design background, I was thinking along the lines of smart textiles, exploring ways of bringing quantum physics (which is an area of science that has fascinated me from a young age) into textiles.

“Everything and Nothing”, 2011, (TV documentary) BBC, BBC 4, 28 March, 2011, 21:00, presented by Professor Jim Al-Khalili, fired my imagination. He was talking about quantum physics theory and how what we deem as a void or emptiness is not really so. He gave examples of an empty glass and postulated that there is some kind of life in what seems to us to be empty then went from the microcosm of the glass to an empty room and then the macrocosm of the universe. This was very thought provoking as I had always thought humans were a result of the earthly conditions that were favourable to life. Could there be some other forms of life that are abound around us and not visible to us? When we are in an empty room, are we alone?

This was how my concept of a sustainable textile which I coined “Nothing textile” was conceived. I have used clear polythene membranes to simulate the ‘apparently’ invisible air (‘nothing’) and encapsulated shredded paper in it.

Fig.1 & 2. Encapsulating shredded paper in clear plastic film.

Fig.3. This is a wavy pattern using shredded paper and I introduced print on the clear plastic film.

Fig.4. Making a herringbone pattern with shredded paper.

Fig.5. This encapsulation consists of gauze netting and shredded cards.