While the Burberry sustainable textile student project has been going on with our third year textile students, Prof. Kay Politowicz has also been busy co-ordinating another live student project with an ethical agenda.
Second year textile students have been hard at work on a project called Glocalisation, in conjunction with online furniture retailer made.com and African Aids charity Monkey Biz, who create wonderful hand beaded objects. The term 'glocalisation' is a combination of the words 'local' and 'global', and the students were asked to look at their local area or place and record and explore the colours that capture this place.
A selection of the students colour palettes and design mood boards were then chosen by speciality beaders Monkeybiz in South Africa, who created a series of beaded panels based on the designs. These panels will then be digitally scanned and printed as artworks, which will be sold on made.com's website, with a percentage of sales going back to the Monkeybiz charity.
There were quite a few people involved in the whole process of this project and it was wonderful to see how this collaborative nature was revealed through the final beaded designs. The beaders had interpreted the student's designs and colour palettes so originally and vibrantly and we look forward to seeing the final digital prints.
See a mention of the project in Design Week here and in My Daily.com here.
