The Textiles and Materiality Cluster at Milieux announces the winners of its recent round of student research grants. Individual Research Grants were awarded to Kelly Arlene Grant (PhD Humanities student), Elizabeth Johnson (MFA student), Ryth Kesselring (BFA student), Kay Niedermayer (MA student), and Etta Sandry (MFA student). A Seed Grant (team) was awarded to Nicholas Shulman (MA student) in collaboration with Claire Nadon and Chris Novello.
Kelly Arlene Grant received an Individual Research Grant to participate in two major living history programs in the US. The first event consisted of two major anniversaries of the American Revolution and allowed Grant to participate in 250th commemorative events, hoping to understand those events more fully, and to understand how these kinds of events are planned and executed. The second event, on the May 5th weekend, allowed Grant to participate in an immersive living history event. This is a type of event where participants walk in with all items of material culture they plan to use over a given weekend. The event contributed to an understanding of how the pieces of material culture Grant has recreated work through active use.
Elizabeth Johnson received an Individual Research Grant to construct a small-scale Jacquard loom. Johnson is experimenting with different ways of mechanically controlling individual heddles using recent technology. Although electronically driven jacquard looms already exist, Johnson is interested in what is possible for making a smaller scale loom that could eventually be more economical and accessible to artists and makers.
Ryth Kesselring received an Individual Research Grant for the project Woven Scores. With this project, Kesselring aims to analyze the rhythm of the weaver is imprinted into the woven textile. The project Woven Scores explores the link between the weaving loom, the rhythm of the body while weaving, and the textile object itself. Throughout history, weaving has been a living archive performed from generation to generation, with the loom acting as a transactional object that maintains the rhythms of remembrance, tradition and identity. As living archives, woven cloths are traces of the movements done by the weaver. Kesselring reflects on how the actions made on the loom are translated into the woven cloth.
Kay Niedermayer received an Individual Research Grant to examine the relationship of fiber and textile to memory and place through three woven maps and oral history. In this textile inquiry, Niedermayer will unearth the legacy of her settler family and the complicated colonial history, wrapped pride as well as displacement, that is embodied in the geography of a centennial homestead farm near Mortlach, Saskatchewan.
Etta Sandry received an Individual Research Grant to draft and weave a twelve-layer cloth that explores dimensionality and transformation in weaving. This project is guided by a curiosity about oppositional structures, specifically the binary aspect of weaving. The goal for this project is to explore whether and how weaving can simultaneously be both binary and multiplicitous.
A Seed Grant (team) was awarded to Nicholas Shulman in collaboration with Claire Nadon and Chris Novello for their research into 3D content and spatial computational experiences. In this project, they will explore how powerful graphics processing and modern depth sensing technology packaged in a wearable form factor can enable new workflows in 3D content creation for immersive media such as virtual and augmented reality. To execute this vision, the team plans to put a desktop-class graphics processor and battery into a beautiful, bespoke, digitally embroidered bag. This powerful portable computer-bag will be connected to a cutting edge depth sensing camera, which we will repackage in fabric for improved usability and aesthetic coherence. Once assembled, this computer apparel prototype will allow the team to explore how wearable GPUs can enable the capture of 3D textures for new workflows in physically-based rendering.
textiles + materiality research cluster 