Weaving the Future: Reimagining Czech Wool Through Design and Collaboration

During the upcoming Dutch Design Week 2024, visitors will have the opportunity to experience the VLNA project—an exhibition showcasing the creative possibilities of locally sourced Czech wool.

To provide a preview before your visit we are delighted to share our interview with Linda Kaplanová, who serves as the head of the Studio of Textile Design at the Academy of Art Architecture and Design in Prague. As a textile designer herself, Linda offers insights into the students' projects and their fresh approaches, towards sustainability, material choices, and collaborative efforts.

Be sure to check out VLNA at the Dutch Design Week—it's a must-see for anyone passionate about the future of textiles!

Linda, how do you think the students working on the VLNA project can help bring attention to Czech wool and change the way we view it locally compared to the global wool markets?

The wool that is traded on a global market is very different from the one we can call local in the Czech Republic. It has long been overlooked for its insufficient properties in comparison with, for example, merino wool.

Local wool offers valuable qualities for us also, from a certain point of view. This fact has troubled those who have a close relationship with wool. From sheep farmers to the craftsmen who process this material.

However, their voices are not being heard in society. As part of the world population thinks about sustainability, ecology and the search for renewable resources, it is beginning to think more about wool, even that which is not of first-class quality.

Of course, we have noticed this resonance in the world and we wanted to help resonate it in the Czech environment by addressing this topic in academia. We started to talk about wool, and in doing so we met other individual personalities, farmers, craftsmen, and artists who are interested in wool.

This opens up space for collaborations that would support the topic of the usability of local wool. The whole student's project with research (Essay) is also shared in an online space. The information is accessible to all and the theme can be further developed.

Interdisciplinary teamwork plays a key role in VLNA, with collaboration between the Textile Design and K.O.V. studio. How has this collaboration shaped the outcomes of the project?

Collaboration naturally opens up discussion and develops thinking about the topic in a broader context.

There was a great desire from the students to understand the whole issue of the unusability of the Czech and European sheep fleece on a global scale, so that they could better piece together the story of how we got to the point with the wool where we are now, and I think it happened also because of a new situation in a working process.

More people, more ideas.

We deliberately wanted to connect the textile studio with a studio that primarily works with hard materials like metal, wood and only occasionally with soft materials to look at the materialist from different angles.

Only descriptively (meaning positively) did the collaboration come together in the project Wool as a Ritual? from the Fashion and Fetish theme. Small objects made of wool, metal, and wax were gradually created.

Behind the project is a very interesting research. Another example is projects that criticize the whole situation around sheep shearing. For example, the project How Convoluted is the "Spinning Wheel" of Industrial Pastoralism? which dealt with the theme of Economics and Politics.

The team created a machine inspired by a spinning wheel that you physically spin, expecting the machine to have function and meaning. It spins, but it creates absolutely nothing. It doesn’t make sense as well as whole global wool market from the student’s point of view.

Further went team with the game Threads, which elaborates on the theme of History and Tools, students ask the question How does the legacy of the Czech wool industry affect current global trade? Using the example of a woolen sweater, they communicate its long journey to market, with the team drawing on specific data they found through thorough research. They encourage players to think about change.

The team of the project Can a mole have a bed from wool? is working on the theme of Ecology and Sustainability. They felt the need to go out of the academic “environment” and discuss local wool with children, for whom they ran a series of workshops.

In a creative way, they introduced the young audience to Czech wool and the challenge it faces. They created worksheets that will also be offered to visitors as part of the exhibition at DDW together with a workshop with this topic.

The projects open up different concepts of usability, and we were positively surprised by the richness of the ways the teams approached the topic.

We have another collaboration about wool ahead of us. Design Academy Eindhoven approached UMPRUM and Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm to think together about the usability of sheep fleece. In the online space we will share our experiences, insights and ideas. This will take the collaboration beyond the borders of one country and I think it will be another step forward for the students.

I see collaboration and the art of communication as an important part of the creative process where we can learn from each other.

One aspect explored in VLNA is wool’s significance throughout history and in society, from its agricultural use to its importance today. How do the students’ creations showcase the practical value of wool in our interconnected world?

What does today's world need from the "one that bites" wool? How can it help us? What material can it replace? These are naturally the questions that come to our mind. I think, the works of the students, show that it is in a way a very versatile material that can respond to the needs of the people today.

Some of the projects use the typical properties of wool and process wool into interior modules, besides mattresses, haptically pleasant. There is the work "What Role Does Wool Play in Modern Protection?" inspired by a traditional technique from Moravia and Slovakia, the wristband technique, which was applied to the principles of body protection.

The students question whether we need to protect our mental space more than our physical body nowadays and create a prototype of a modular wall for interior design.

Another project is investigating whether goose feathers or polyester fibre could be substituted for sheep's fleece in the familiar quilted jackets and vests.

Another team is intrigued by the traditional willowing wool technique and are working on a collaborative theme where the outcome is a wool painting. Wool accepts dye very well, it is therefore a very suitable material for colour compositions.

I find the collaboration itself important for the people nowadays, like the need to share in real-time. This simple, repetitive and almost meditative technique, which often takes place in nature, is very relaxing.

The students also tried combining ceramics with wool, which has a very playful potential with its use in interior design. They offer small modular gardens for urban apartments, using the ability of wool to draw moisture from the surrounding environment. Other projects are more conceptual but highlight the versatility and malleability of the woolen material.

VLNA initiative focuses on exploring possibilities of wool in sectors like healthcare and environmental sustainability through experimental means. How do you believe these imaginative and artistic methods could influence real-world applications within the textile industry or beyond?

Believe is a good word. We believe, we have hope. We never know which thought will catch someone else's and together create something new.

Students offer a vision that can inspire others. The seed is planted. I can vividly imagine, for example, a city person yearning for a good bacteria charger as offered by the speculative project, Nourish Your Body and Soil.

How to transform this idea from the level of speculative design? This might be interesting question for some new technology researcher.

Another project with the same theme: Health and Body: Do We Remember How It Felt? resulted in the design of interior products, including several types of mattresses, visually different, but created with the same technology; dry felting.

From the outside, the work was almost reminiscent of the practices of Zen monks. Mattresses that draw you to touch by the very nature of the material need a really huge time investment to create.

For the students, the lengthy manual process of making was itself important as a kind of need for the experience of slowing down in a fast-moving world. They tried to create mattresses by machine in cooperation with the Textile Faculty of University in Liberec. It was also important experience. I think one student from this team would like to develop some mattresses in cooperation with the textile industry. This could be a good example of synchronisation of industry and handwork. The industry would process the wool to a certain stage, followed by the handwork.

Just the very fact that we have here a material that is (not only) in the Czech context a by-product of sheep farming for meat has the qualities that the world is looking for in a material - it is renewable and biodegradable, can be inspired by just the very interest in sheep fleece.

The textile design program at the Academy has a foundation in sustainable practices and traditional material expertise. How do you manage to teach these principles while also promoting creativity and innovation in projects like VLNA that address global challenges?

We understand traditional material expertise as a basis for innovation. At the beginning of the project, students from both studios were taken through special workshops on traditional sheep fleece processing technologies using different techniques of felting and spinning.

Other workshops that took place last semester for students of textile studio, were focused on dyeing procedures, with chemical dyes - with an emphasis on gentle dosage of dyes, and with natural pigments.

The students also attended a lecture on the history of wool to better understand the context of this material, prepared by Linda Havrlíková, a great promoter of local wool and designer, from whom we also buy sheep fleece.

The students thus met and discussed with experts, craftsmen, artists, and designers who try to change perceptions of wool: For example, Tadeáš Podracký (head of the Studio K.O.V.) invited Pete Fung, Helen Milne from NOOF LAB, and designer Fernando Laposse, who are also dedicated to inventing creative ways to process local natural materials.

Each team had the opportunity to consult with him and hear his opinion on their work. All of these activities were designed to get students in the mood to think about the material and create a desire to physically experiment with it.

Thank you Linda, VLNA is constantly exploring horizons, in design and innovative materials – it's evident that the world of textiles is embracing collaboration and creativity for the future ahead.

We trust that chatting with Linda has shed light on the potential of using wool in new ways. Don't miss out on visiting the project, in person at Dutch Design Week 2024 for an experience that will keep your creativity flowing!

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.