Barbara Jansen is a textile designer whose design research aims to explore the interaction between textiles, light, movement and time. She has recently graduated with her PhD thesis, in which she investigates the conceptual and aesthetic development of lighting textile design, exploring interaction between daylight and textile surfaces, and the integration of artificial light into textiles. Thereby the focus of her research is shifting more and more towards the issue of how to compose time, movement and light inside textiles. Her work is driven by a pronounced experimental, practice based design research approach and bridges the use of craft and industrial techniques.
NAME?
Barbara Jansen
OCCUPATION?
Textile Designer, Artist, Researcher
WHAT DOES FIBER MEAN TO YOU?
Fibers enable me to shape what so ever out of my hands. As soon I am holding them in my hands, they know what to do and something grows out of it.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FIBER OR TEXTILE TECHNIQUE?
Weaving, braiding, felt making; I need to create the textile from scratch, from the selection of each single fibre or thread, to each movement of it inside a textile structure.
WHAT IS YOUR MOST VIVID TEXTILE MEMORY?
Going far back into my early childhood; I joined my mum to a natural dyeing workshop in a wild grown garden. The big pots of dye were steaming over the fireplaces, we children’s were lingering around the activities, and here would woollen strands be pulled out steaming lilac, and over there steaming yellow, and over there in green… but the real magic happened afterwards, when everything was nearly over. The fires were burned out and we discovered in the ashes the leftover wood, and oh what’s that, we discovered a drawing tool, the black thing left cheerful marks on the ground … it was a garden time full of wonders.