'NEW TEXTILE CRAFT' AT DIREKTORENHAUS, BERLIN

Berlin’s Direktorenhaus Gallery now presents ‘New Textile Craft’, an exhibition which transforms the gallery space into a maze of knitted materials, woven textiles, organic objects and hand-stitched fabrics. The exhibition showcases for the first time the work of 4 new young textile designers; Signe Emdal from Kopenhagen, Hao-Ni Tsai from London, Ruth Duff from Glasgow and Izumi Sato from Stockholm.

In a manner similar to the Japanese tradition of onomatopoeia (capturing sound with words), Izumi blends the rhythm of rain into her fabric to describe an atmosphere and state of mind. Clear glass beads are carefully hand-placed in the double-stitched, semitransparent fabric creating a poetic and subtle light reflection like raindrops on a window.

Signe Emdal is an expert in transforming digital visuals into knitted fabrics. The main focus is a field of  “Nature versus Digital “ and a deep respect of the world’s textile-heritage.The artists work with a German Industrial digital knitting machine from 1984. Originally the 84 machine worked with punch cards, but has since then been “upgraded” to a digital system. At Direktorenhaus, Signe Emdal shows her newest project, a Victorian-like Winter-garden scenery out of knitted wallcoverings.

Born in Taiwan, Hao-ni Tsai explores the possibility of transforming both Western and indigenous Taiwanese fibres and craft techniques, into innovative textiles through hybrid combinations. This cross-cultural approach aims to create a link between East and West with a new contemporary aesthetic and add value to an ancient material craft. Her project ‘Textile Futures Textile’ demonstrates a process of re-evaluation and reinterpretation of abandoned materials from the natural environment in order to redesign them and celebrate their potential value.

The collection Ruth Duff is showing at Direktorenhaus, “Botanical Brights”, is inspired by the flora and fauna of Glasgow’s Botanical Gardens, focusing mainly on the colour, structure and pattern of the plants and flowers. Botanical Brights is an exploration of dobby weaving, jacquard weaving and screen printing to produce a collection of innovative, exciting and unique fabrics for the interiors market.

The exhibition, currently running alongside Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Berlin and the Bread & Butter trade fair will continue until the 30^th July 2011 so if you are heading down to Berlin this weekend for the closing parties be sure to also check out the Direktorenhaus to see some of fashions latest textile design trends…

www.direktorenhaus.com

By Deborah Mclean