A Home for the Body

What is your vision of textile futures?
Textiles is an incredibly malleable design discipline. My vision for future textiles is similar to my vision for design in general. To have an interdisciplinary approach where various fields can begin to inform and feed off one another.

What is your project about?
My project is about looking at the relationship between architecture, textiles and fashion, and unravelling the hidden congruencies between these disciplines. Textiles have always played a role in demarcating space, particularly within the domestic environment. With this in mind, my project seeks to deconstruct these boundaries and propose new adaptations where textiles become a room that the body can inhabit.

What inspires you?
Love.

Why are you doing this project? What does it mean to you?
When I began this project, I had a totally different idea of what would come out of it. I initially started off by trying to understand what the areas of textiles and architecture meant to me, and how I would be able to negotiate myself between the two. I’m slightly surprised at the outcome, and feel that the project ended up unravelling previously overlooked aspects of myself. It has been a terribly challenging journey of self-discovery, one that I am truly grateful for.

What is ‘future’ about it?
The concept of creating a room within a textile involves developing a dialogue between two- and three-dimensional planes. With this, we can begin to develop new solutions of how we inhabit and understand our experiences of space and boundaries.

Which materials and technologies have you used?
I’ve used the heatsetting technique in order to frame up objects within the home. I’ve used printing as a tool to create large-scale illustrations. I’ve also explored polyesters and natural fibres such as wool.

Sindiso Khumalo
Having graduated from the University of Cape Town in 2001 with BA Degree in Architecture, Sindiso moved to London to work for prominent London architect David Adjaye. At Adjaye Associates, she was involved in a number of different projects including a collaboration between Adjaye Associates and design duo Boudicca in a dress project named ‘Exaltation’, published in British Vogue, November 2004. She then joined the MA Textile Futures course, and in August 2005 won the ‘Fashion’s Memory Exhibition’ competition in which she exhibited her work alongside a number of prominent fashion designers. She is currently involved in a number of freelance design projects in London and South Africa.

Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to my mother, for always standing by me and being the greatest friend. My wonderful boyfriend Edward McCann (Poo Poo), for always showing me so much love and support. The Khumalo family, my precious baby brother Zamani for willing to drive me to the dodgiest areas of Durban, in “our” quest to find the strangest, most obscure objects and fabric for this project, the McCann family, the Lesolle family, David and Karen for always believing in me and teaching me my precious kitso, my lovely flatmate Max, Sushino aka Master Chan, Liv for always taking the most amazing photographs of my work, Reece for all her help, Alan and Kevin in the print workshop (you guys are the unsung heroes of the School), my best friend Ella, my best friend Zamo in South Africa and all my wonderful loving friends in London and South Africa. Finally and most importantly, my late father Vivian Khumalo, I love and miss you x….