New York Textile Month
Image: Lidewij Edelkoort. Photo by Thirza Schaap.
NYTM runs throughout September, a month-long city-wide (and online) festival designed to celebrate textile creativity and promote textile awareness. Initiated by Lidewij Edelkoort, trend forecaster and Dean of Hybrid Studies at The New School and assisted by Ragna Froda, this multiple-location event gathers all voices and expressions concerning textiles, bringing together museums, galleries, showrooms, retailers, design studio, students and the general public. There is a full programme of events, but we have picked three of our highlights: Cooper Hewitt - Object of the Week, The Computer Pays Its Debt: Women, Textiles, and Technology, 1965-1985 and Behind the Prints with Marimekko.
As in past years, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is collaborating with the Textile Society of America to celebrate New York Textile Month. Four former presidents of TSA will author blog posts about objects from Cooper Hewitt's collection of over 26,000 textiles – including for example the Nike Pro Hijab – on the museum's fascinating Object of the Week blog, with new posts every Monday.
Image: Photo by Flint Born ©
The Computer Pays Its Debt – a Center for Craft exhibition – tells the missing stories of women’s creative contributions to early computing. Weaving lies at the heart of the Information Age. Many cite the Jacquard Loom as inspiration for the first computers. Yet this is where most histories stop, a move that positions craft's influence on technology as a curiosity. This exhibition challenges this narrative, highlighting women who worked with technology and textiles before the rise of personal computing. Works by Janice Lourie, Sonia Sheridan, Sonya Rapoport, Lia Cook, and Katherine Westphal, highlight the shared concerns and approaches that unite textiles and technology. You can visit virtually (ticketed).
Image: via Marimekko.com.
Behind the Prints is an online talk with Senior Print Design Specialist at Marimekko, Petri Juslin. Since Marimekko was founded in 1951, its positive lifestyle philosophy has been based on empowering people to be happy as they are. Ultimately, Marimekko's story revolves around the art of printmaking. Each Marimekko print represents a collaboration between the designer and the company's printing factory in Helsinki, which is one of the only ones in the Nordics to operate on an industrial scale.
For more information visit www.textilemonth.nyc