Kay Politowicz has been in Italy at the Museo del Tessuto, a textile museum in Prato speaking at a conference on the creative use of textile archives. The conference was the final event in the Eurotex ID project, which aimed to enhance the European textile identity.

The first stage of the project has seen the digitising of textile archives from Prato and several museums in Spain, providing details of the local, specific production processes and techniques of each piece. The next stage involved fashion design students who were allowed access to the textile archives and through a series of creative workshops, were encouraged to re-interpret the samples for new designs.The student's designs were also on show at the event.

Kay's presentation to the symposium audience showcased TED's Design Stories, which visualises TED's TEN Design Strategies for sustainability.

This project is a great example of a way to encourage designer's to find inspiration and new ways of thinking and making through historical archive pieces, and ties in with one of TED's Design Strategy, 'Look Back to Look Forward'.

TED's D(urability)-Day

D-DAY! Friday 17th September 2010: After being inspired by the Martin Marjiela exhibition in the summer, TED staff decided to put their money where their mouths, or rather hands are, and get eco-creative in the print room at Chelsea. With reference to the beautiful white washed work on show at Somerset House, Kay Politowicz designed a day for TED's practice-based researchers to explore garment durability concepts using print techniques.

Garments: We were asked to dig around the bottom of our wardrobes over the summer, and come into college with clothes and accessories that we no longer wore. Some had stains on them, some were ripped and torn beyond repair, and some were 'freebies' deemed too ugly to wear. Others things that we brought in were too small, too big, too moth eaten, or simply too dull to be loved!

Techniques: We decided to keep it simple - white pigment and opaque binder, silver / gold / white / black foils, flocking paper - and use direct application techniques like hand painting, rollers, and open screens and stencils. The idea was to experiment to find simple, quick, but visually arresting ways to reinvent the clothes.

Outcomes: In the space of a few hours we came up with some really beautiful pieces. The things that caught my eye included the items pictured here...

Frances's unworn grey shirt printed with a stencil with opaque white
Kay's stained orange jumper rollered with glue and then foiled
Clara's plain white summer dress printed with an open screen and then foiled

Watch this space for the next installment - where we explore the ideas further by all remaking a set of identical items from a high street source - the next D-Day will take place in December 2010.

TED's Summer Debate - Friday 16th July 2010

“Sustainable design in the real world is just an educator’s fantasy…”

This is the (e) motion that Professor Kay Politowicz is proposing for TED's AGENDAS 2010 event, here at Chelsea on Friday 16th July 2010. Join us between 2pm and 4pm, to hear four eminent speakers argue both FOR and AGAINST this motion. They will spend five minutes arguing each case, and they aren’t allowed to use slides!

This event is timed to coincide with the UK Texprint ‘First View’ Exhibition, held at Chelsea at the same time. Delegates will be able to view this closed exhibition in the Triangle Gallery between 9am and 5pm on the day. The event will be an informal ‘platform’ debate, intended to bring the issues of sustainability and design to the attention of the assembled Texprint audience, exhibitors and sponsors who are all involved in the design and production of textiles for fashion.

Our intention is to make it a combination of IQ Magazine’s ‘Intelligence Squared’, which says that it is “creating knowledge through contest” and TV’s ‘Argumental’ which claims to be “a celebration of the art of argument”. This event is a chance to do both with speakers having a chance to put a point of view in a series of headline statements and then argue with themselves with contradictory and counter argument.

This fun event is intended to raise the serious issue that is essentially: HOW, not WHETHER to address sustainability in the education of designers. It gives us the opportunity to air concerns about what any of us can or should be doing about it in our different professional circumstances.

Lines should not remain uncrossed. Sensitivities should not be spared, and there will be ample opportunity for the audience to make comments, and for speakers to respond if they wish, followed finally by a vote by all on the motion.

This promises to be a really lively and informative afternoon. Join us if you can – it is free and there is no need to book. Just come along to the lecture theatre at Chelsea (entrance on Atterbury Street). Watch this space over the next few days as the confirmed line up of speakers is announced…

(Image credit: 'Venn Diagram', Matthew Sawyer 2010)

Becky Earley and Kay Politowicz have been invited to deliver a series of workshops and lectures to design students at Weissensee Kunsthochschule, Berlin in April 2010.

TED's 'Design Stories' workshops will be open to a multi-disciplinary student audience including fashion, product and textile design students.

TED has been invited by Dr. Zane Berzina, Professor for Conceptual Development of Materials and Surface Textiles at the college.

TED goes to China

TED member Professor Kay Politowicz was in China last week presenting a paper at 'Design for Tomorrow's Customers Today: ', a conference organised by Creative Connexions, who aim to promote the benefits of using the UK's creative talent to China.

Co-written with Rebecca Earley, the presentation was titled Sustainability and Enterprise:Testing the Theories with Design and explores several 'sustainability design stories' that TED has developed.

Conversations on (a) Slow Craft

The TED team recently took part in a small research project devised by Becky Earley, to coincide with the Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution exhibition which is opening at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in October.

The idea behind Conversations on (a) Slow Craft was to take a group of textile designers and send them on a barge trip along a canal, while they discussed Slow and what it means to them and their practice as textile designers. The TED group were also joined by wallpaper designer Linda Florence, furniture maker David Gates and the whole conversation was audio recorded by artist Russell Martin.

The group were then led through a workshop in Japanese Sashiko embroidery by Emma Neuberg, which is part of her Extended Life textile workshop series.

The idea is for the format to be repeated at the different cities where the Taking Time exhibit tours to. A group of jewellers may all travel together on a horse and cart and talk about Slow or a group of ceramicists on bikes.

The audio recordings and transcriptions of the conversation will be available soon. In the meantime, there are some previous audio recordings of conversations between artists about Slow on the Taking Time website.

'Cultural Collage' project begins

The TED Project is part of an international collaborative design project called Cultural Collage. The project is led by TED's Visiting Professor Marie O'Mahony, and it will involve designers and design students from the University of Technology (UTS) in Sydney, Australia, Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile and TED designers and students.

Working around the central themes of recycling, mutli-disciplinary practice and cultural collaboration, the designers will be asked to choose a second-hand plastic object and this will then be sent to the group of designers in the next country to be worked on or transformed, while always maintaining its functionality. The reworked object will then be sent to the next group of designers to be worked on for a final time.

Participants will also be asked to keep a 'passport' of their ideas, a sketchbook which records their drawings and thoughts which will be sent on with the accompanying object.

TED recently hosted an introductory workshop with presentations from Marie OMahony, Kate Goldsworthy, Emma Neuberg and Prof. Kay Politowicz. Other participants include textile designer Katherine Wardropper and Nigel Bents, a graphic designer and tutor at Chelsea. We will post regular updates once the participants choose their objects and start working on them.

The final pieces will be exhibited as part of PassionTour, a design festival in Santiago in September 2009.