Our latest newsletter and press articles
September 2019
Lab to invest in weaving technology
The Textile and Design Lab will acquire its first weaving loom later this year following the University’s approval of its latest funding bid for new capital equipment.
The loom, manufactured by Norwegian Engineering company Tronrud, is scheduled to be commissioned in December and will be available to students and commercial partners for R+D projects in early 2020.
The TC2 model has a digital jacquard motion with manual weft insertion making it ideal for researchers and designers to get ‘hands-on’ with their practical work and prototyping. Tronrud supply their range of TC2 looms globally to educational institutes, research and development facilities and domestic weavers.
The TC2 loom – image courtesy of Tronrud Engineering
Conference season underway
Three of our academic staff, Professor Frances Joseph, Dr Miranda Smitheram and Dr Donna Cleveland presented their research at the EKSIG2019 conference in Estonia earlier this month. The conference theme was Knowing Together - experiential knowledge and collaboration.
EKSIG is part of a program of Special Interest Groups set up by the Design Research Society (DRS) to facilitate international exchange and to advance knowledge in relevant areas of design. The event was hosted by the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. Donna Cleveland presented her research paper Redirecting Textile Knowledge: An Innovative Approach to Recycling, and Frances Joseph presented a paper co-authored with Miranda Smitheram entitled Collaborative Ecologies through Material Entanglements.
View the conference proceedings
Frances Joseph presenting her research at the EKSIG conference
Frances Joseph also attended the Textile Intersections Conference held at Loughborough University's London Campus, where she presented an exhibit of creative work made collaboratively with Miranda Smitheram, entitled 'Critical Materialities of Textiles and Ecology' as part of their Phenomenal Dress project. The Conference explored themes of textiles and architecture, textiles and interactions, textile materialities, and critical textiles, highlighting connections and interdisciplinary collaborations furthering research in the field of textiles and textile design.
Read more about the exhibition
Donna Cleveland was also in Spain this month attending the inaugural opening of the 2019 World Textile Art biennial. Donna was a finalist in the 'Sustainable City' outdoor large format textile art and her work will be exhibited in the Real Jardín Botánico Alfonso XIII garden's in Madrid until November. The creative work has interactive colour changing pigments that are transparent when exposed to high temperatures.
November E-Textiles workshop
Places are still available for the lab’s upcoming E-Textile workshop being held on Thursday and Friday 28-29 November. This 2-day hands-on workshop will introduce participants to e-textiles and their many functions. Participants will learn to code their own Lilypad Arduino micro-controller, and design and make soft circuits and a range of sensors.
Colour communication workshop
The lab is currently working with a digital colour management expert to develop a new half-day workshop focusing on communicating colour to offshore suppliers with an emphasis on digital printing. More details will be announced shortly.
Digital Materiality Salon
Date: Monday 7 October 2019
Time: 2 – 4pm
Venue: Europe House, Level 16, 56 Wakefield Street, Auckland CBD
Entry: All welcome – free of charge
RSVP: harry.silver@aut.ac.nz
AUT’s Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies and the Textile and Design Lab invite you to a round table conversation exploring Digital Materiality.
Join us for an interdisciplinary gathering to share ideas and questions, practice and projects, research and afternoon tea.
The occasion will explore ideas at the intersection of the material and digital through intra-action, performativity, gesture, touch and the material interface.
AUT’s Te Ataata artist in residence, Maurin Donneaud, will be joining the discussion alongside academics, students, industry and community. Maurin is the 2019 laureate of the Te Ataata residency, which is a joint initiative between AUT and the French Embassy in New Zealand, with the support of Institut Français. The programme allows for a French creative practitioner to be hosted at AUT and aims to develop collaborations and initiatives between the two countries.
Learn more about the Te Ataata programme
Summer student opportunity with Lanaco
A great opportunity for a final year undergraduate or postgraduate student has arisen with Textile and Design Lab commercial partner, Lanaco.
Lanaco is an innovative Auckland-based company that develops and manufactures high performing, multi-functional nonwoven filter media using natural wool as the key ingredient for a range of air filtration applications.
Applicants should have a design background to assist in the research and development of a hybrid wearable mask concept that incorporates a Lanaco filter, which will be aimed at the company’s wearables customers.
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