Material world: New exhibition highlights technology and textiles

London – A new exhibition on future textiles explores the boundaries between craft and technology, design and science, reality and the virtual. Following stops in Tokyo and Guangzhou, Warp Factor 09 now brings to the British capital the collaborations and explorations of textile researchers and designers at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Among the projects on display are Suzanne Lee’s ‘Eco Kimono’, which is made of sheets of bacterial-cellulose grown in a green tea solution; Eunsuk Hur’s interchangeable modular system of textile pieces that users combine to create new items of clothing; and Elisa Strozyk’s wooden textiles made of veneer wood off-cuts.

Taken as a whole, the works point to an exciting future in new materials that sees science and technology reinterpreting craft traditions for the new century.