‘Postcards from Japan’ explores the relationship between textiles, fashion and the photographic image, primarily focusing on its usage within printed textile design. With a background in Photography for Fashion my main aim for undertaking an MA in Textile Design Innovation was to learn, develop and understand the use of traditional and digital textile processes and technologies that would compliment my photographic knowledge, and to produce a collection of work that studied the connection between the different disciplines.
Being awarded a Paul Smith Scholarship was an amazing opportunity for me to explore a new culture, collect primary imagery and to start a new textile journey that moved me away from my previous practice of creating kaleidoscopic imagery, and move towards being able to appreciate photographs as a textile print designs in their own right.
During my time in Japan I documented my travels and cultural experiences through the medium of analogue photography. Documenting nine rolls of 35mm colour film enabled me to build up my own photographic archive throughout the six-week scholarship, capturing personal memories and experiences.
Although the partnership between digital and analogue processes was a key feature within the overall development of the project from the scanning of the negatives through to the final print designs. I made the conscious decision after returning from Japan to only explore the use of my 35mm analogue images. I felt that my digital photographs were reflective of straight documentary photography, whereas a negatives physical nature was fragile and delicate, and the unintentional light leaks, fogging and distortion throughout the rolls of film created visually stimulating images and reflected the key concept of the project; how over time our minds would manipulate what were once vivid memories, reducing them to vague thoughts; so the process of removing, rebuilding and remembering my memories started.
The process of cellulose printing mirrored the uncontrollable aspects of analogue photography. It was a process that never created the same design twice, removing the clarity of the image to produce a blurred print that distorted the memory, creating a nostalgic and visually dream like appearance to the design. With individual print designs being created their preciousness through the medium of analogue film and process of cellulose printing would be retained through limited runs and exclusive designs.
Collating key images together from my analogue photographs and cellulose print designs, I explored the use of discharge and devoré, continuing to distort my designs further. This would reduce them to the vague thoughts they will once become. Through exploring these processes using a screen, it became apparent that I was returning to the rigidity of digital photography and simply by hand painting with these processes I created freer, more imperfect designs that continued to reflect the initial distorted imagery from Japan and my concept of memory.
From distorting the images to vagueness, I focused on rebuilding the designs with the use of foil, reactive dyes and digital embroidery. However, these traditional and digital processes had their limitations in regards to the use of photographic imagery, often with the subject matter of the photograph determining the overall success of the sample. If there was more time within the MA these traditional screen-printing processes and digital embroidery designs would be the key aspect to experiment with and resolve further, to create a harmonious relationship between the process and the photographic image. Therefore constructing the memory became more about the digital restoration of my experiences, exploring the use of CAD rather than craft.
This led me to start digitally merging my initial photographs together with their cellulose counterparts, choosing fragments of the designs that were most prominent to me, starting me down a path of creating distorted imagery that had a visually familiar aesthetic, yet an unfamiliar presence. Through manipulating, distorting and fragmenting my designs I created delicate, blunt and surreal prints that created an alternative reality and questioned the truth.
The remembering aspect of my project was resolved in module three during the realisation of my designs. Establishing that digital print design was my strongest style of handwriting, I used the module to finalise prints produced through the removing and rebuilding stages of my project. With the initial project aim to create lengths of fabric I started to further explore the use of photography within a repeat. However, this experimentation was quickly cut short due to the fact that I was restrained to the squares and rectangular boxes of a photographic frame, I could not escape the boxy repeat due to the nature of the unsymmetrical images, and so my creativity was channeled into producing an alternative output for large scale designs, with the first resolved pieces being seven scarves, created from habotai and chiffon. This continued to reflect the delicate and fragile nature of memories through all aspects of my project.
The second resolved collection that would compliment the scarf designs was the designing and production of two minimal seam dresses. Coming from a non-fashion background I found the alternative garment construction method inspiring from David Telfer’s workshop. It pushed me to think further than a 2D print and explore my designs within 3D. By combining print design projections, CAD and the use of maquettes I created a dress that continued to replicate the distortion theme, where the print would not match at the seams. In contrast the second dress was engineered enabling the print to match perfectly across the seams responding to the initial wholeness of a photograph and therefore a memory.
Although the visual outcomes of the dresses were stunning, choosing a minimal seam pattern was not without its difficulties. Fabric shrinkage was calculated for when the designs were digitally printed, yet on both dresses the print did not match with the pattern, and so compromising on the seams was something that needed to be considered to ensure all of the design looked in proportion. Through creating these two minimal seam garments it has proven to me that although technology can produce perfect results using CAD and miniature 3D maquettes as soon as this is transferred from 2D to 3D, at a larger scale there are a variety of different factors that need to be taken into consideration to ensure that the initial design is reflected in the end product.
‘Postcards from Japan’ has been an explorative and creative project that has directed me to different areas of textiles I didn’t initially think that I would experiment with or develop my work towards. It is through photographing my scarves using 35mm analogue film and taking them out of their original context, that I have realised the true extent of the relationship between photography, fashion and textiles within my project. By creating new photographs with light leaks and fogging reflective of my initial imagery I have produced new photographs that in their own right could be print designs. It has become apparent that through photographing and re-photographing, my project has become about the process of photography in all aspects of design.
It is now a case of where shall I take these new images to continue my photographic journey within textile print design.
