Textile design events: An investigation into textile entanglements with insects and other living organisms

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates textile-based artefacts as a starting point to engage in more-than-human entangled design processes. Instead of catering designs towards targeted species, the focus was on generating a palette of expressions that might inspire more-than-human interactions through the integrated diverse shapes, surfaces and materials. Drawing from design approaches that seek to re-center the more-than-human in human interventions, we understand other organisms as clients of design, active participants in the design process, and as co-inhabitants. Complementing freeform crocheted textiles with ceramics and 3D printing, we created a series of artefacts with a multitude of textures, porosities, permeabilities and flexibilities. The variation was extended by further explorations in biomaterial coating and integrating substrates. From this range of experimental work, we present three selected Textile Events. These textile-based Design Events were gradually set up in the spring of 2022 around the Tiny House on Wheels (THoW) of one of the authors. Embedded in the local ecosystem of Særløse overdrev on Zealand, Denmark, the THoW sits by the Bidstrup forest in the national park of Skjoldungernes Land. Auto-ethnographic observation disclosed a series of interactions that inspired us to learn more about the behaviour and life cycle of the more-than-human who co-created the Textile Events. We illustrate how the interactions changed and complexified with each season, and furthermore reflect on the potential of the artefacts, for example as nesting aids for solitary bees and wasps.