Can materials be alive and regenerative? A journey to my MFA Design thesis
As I progressed in my undergraduate studies in fashion design, the more I learned about the fashion industry, the more I realized that I did not want to design or make clothes. Oh! How could I become a fashion designer not wanting to make clothes? At first I felt a lot of fear and disorientation and thought I had taken the wrong career path. But then I began to investigate more and understand that given the convoluted current circumstances of the world, perhaps designers were called to do other things beyond continuing to create new things.
Image: Fungal collaborators
The work of Lynda Grose and Kate Fletcher helped me understand that for a fashion designer clothes could be a means rather than an end. Through clothing I began to create collective spaces to question and learn design and sustainable consumption practices (Taller Ambulante workshops!). I collaborated for several years between Colombia, Argentina and Chile, with designers and artists who transformed second-hand garments into new garments, unique objects and artistic installations (Docena Chile!). The garment deconstruction work we did introduced me to this technique and connected me with a very personal curiosity about fibers, particles, matter and materials. It was there when I began to explore the creation of materials using textile waste and Proyecto Petreo was born, which I was able to apply in artistic, educational, scientific and design (jewelry) contexts.
When I ventured into materials design, I found new questions and multidisciplinary challenges around sourcing (raw materials that come from waste streams), the transformation and conformation processes of textile and composite materials, the characterization of their properties, their possible applications, and above all, how to design materials from waste that remained circular.
With these questions I began a Master of Fine Arts in Design at the University of California Davis in 2021, as soon as in-person education resumed after the 2020 pandemic. During my studies I could answer many of these questions by combining knowledge of design with that of materials sciences, environmental sciences and engineering; developing a transdisciplinary proposal for the creation of materials that I synthesize in my thesis “Sustainable Pathways for Repurposing Textile Waste into Materials”.
In summary, the project focuses on the use of binders with “superpowers” that allow materials made from textile waste to circulate along different applications/material cycles, while they eventually biodegrade or as I call it, “get closer to the soil”. In the first life cycle, thanks to binders from the starch family, textile waste is turned into light, medium-hardness composite materials, similar to felts, with customizable textures and colors, and with possible applications in interior architecture (wall and ceiling panels, profiles, space dividers, furniture pieces, decoration). The water solubility of these binders allows the recovery of the textile fibers at the end of the life cycle of these products/materials, and their subsequent reintroduction into the biocycles of the mycelium materials, where they act as reinforcing agents but are also affected by the capabilities of fungi of biodegrading complex compounds (for example the polymers that make up textile fibers).
I invite you to read the full thesis here and see the creative results of this research in the /WORK/ section of this website. As you can see, this project is the beginning of many possibilities for research and development of materials that act as composters and sinks for mixed-fiber textile waste, one of the most problematic solid waste stream from the production and consumption of clothing and textiles. New questions that have emerged in this research have to do with interspecies collaboration to remediate waste flows through materials: how can we involve living organisms in the remediation of textile pollution? What species work best? in what quantities? How do they affect/degrade fibers? What type of materials do they generate and what possible applications can they have?
I hope that my questions can resonate with others in the short term to continue creatively exploring solutions to waste problems and in general to contribute to restoring the relationship between human beings and materials.
