I was strolling through the West Village on a sunny Sunday when I happened to go by Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Center on Greenwich Street. There was a sign outside the exhibit space next to the store that said “Exhibit closes today.” Of course that made me want to go in!
The exhibit was called Emerging Fibers, and showcased the Parsons School of Design MFA Textiles 2021 Graduate Exhibit. One of the artists, Shradha Kochhar, gave me a tour of the exhibit and described the methods and meaning of the textile artworks. I was incredibly impressed with the complex, intricate, beautiful work. Many of the pieces expressed the inextricability of the personal, familial, and political.
This dress is made from a sustainable material called TômTex. It’s a biobased material made from mushroom or seashell waste and coffee grounds. Designer Uyen Tran aims to establish a complete system of viable, biodegradable materials with zero waste and zero pollution. I would definitely wear this dress!
Hongci Hu created this underwater world from a collection of biomimetic E-textile artworks. She says these soft-robotic-individuals are chatter of conscious thoughts, raising awareness of how beautiful nature is and what we can learn from it. Certainly her crocheted creatures delight and inspire the desire to protect our underwater landscapes. See Hongci Hu’s playlist for more about her work.
I was delighted by the creative outpouring of these fresh, hopeful souls who came to New York to develop their capacities to offer their gifts and vision to the world. Kudos to all of the graduates.