Weaving Futures is an exhibition at London Transport Museum highlighting the importance of woven textile design to the London Transport system. The exhibition explores the process and making of digital woven textiles, as part of the Museums’, Designology season. Weaving Futures is curated by Philippa Brock and Samuel Plant Dempsey.
Each week, visitors will can see invited designers/artists in residence in the Designology studio, who will be working on a project brief and interacting with a weaver in their residency dates. The weavers will be interpreting the residents work live into digital woven textile prototypes and final works on a state-of-the-art TC2 digital jacquard loom.Â
Week 10 & 11Â features: Â Collaboration with Dr. Priti Veja, Samuel Plant Dempsey & Philippa Brock
Residency dates: 23rd – 28th, 30 & 31st Jan 2017
Activity days: 25th / 26th & 30th Jan 2017
Researchers & Design consultants Philippa Brock, Samuel Plant Dempsey & Dr. Priti Veja will be coming together in Weaving Futures to work collaboratively on  concept  issues based design for transport, combining their expertise in design thinking, 3D digital woven jacquard/haptics, product design/3D printing and woven E-textiles.
Samuel Plant Dempsey
Samuel Dempsey is a Product Designer at Transport for London (TfL) designing more effective solutions for transport in London across all modes, from walking to trains. Collaborating with experts, from electrical engineers to textile weavers to create innovative designs through rigorous research that are both highly effective and aesthetically engaging. Currently he is working extensively on improving the both the ambience of underground train interiors and usability for passengers with reduced mobility and vision.
Previously he studied at the RCA exploring how design can provoke critical public engagement through the creation of products as actors, translating estrangement techniques from Epic Theatre into both critical and pragmatic design solutions. Sam previously worked for Nokia and Microsoft as a 3D Printing Specialist and Industrial Designer.
Dr Priti Veja
Dr Priti Veja is a London based design researcher, smart materials & electronic textile (e-textile) consultant and lecturer. Priti completed her PhD doctoral research at Brunel University London, College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences (EPSRC supported) in 2015. The research focused on woven e-textiles through design led processes and empirical investigations, combining electronics into constructed woven structures. Using her expert woven knowledge, Priti’s research applied woven methods to make integrated soft circuits as a simultaneous process. The work investigated e-textiles materials for soft product application, (e.g. wearable technology, smart textiles) and opportunities for e-textiles manufacture. The research continues through a spin out practice called ‘Weft Lab’.
Alongside her research work, Veja lectures at Central Saint Martins, (UAL) London, where she teaches on the BA (Hons) Textile Design course. Priti previously trained as a woven textile designer at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, London. Priti’s industry experience includes collaborative research and design projects, exhibiting work internationally, delivering e-textile workshops, product development and consultancy work with engineers, scientists, product designers and textile manufacturing.
Philippa Brock
Philippa Brock is a digital jacquard woven textile researcher, designer, artist and curator, who explores innovative, self-folding, deployable 3D jacquard textiles which combine unusual combinations of design, weave structure and yarn  –  textile engineering. Her work is self woven on an industrial power loom and pushes the boundaries of what is possible on the machinery. She has also developed e-textile sensors, actuators and switches in collaboration, and is currently working on multilayered woven jacquard textiles and laser cutting. She studied at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London and the Royal College of Art.
Brock also works with international textile companies including research and development, colour and materials forecasting, exhibits her textile work internationally in galleries, including a solo exhibition in Montreal and was part of the Nobel Textiles Project, interpreting science concepts into 3D digital woven jacquard outcomes. Her work is in the Crafts Council permanent collection, and she was awarded The Worshipful Company of Weavers Silver Medal in 2014.
Recent exhibitions include New York Textile Month, Kickback London Motorcycle show and exhibitor & co-curator of Real Dirty Blue at the Lethaby Gallery London. Brock  runs the weave department at Central Saint Martins, University of The Arts London, part time – is a lead researcher in the Textiles Futures Research Centre, occasional visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, editor of The Weave Shed, a resource website and blog for professional weavers and joint founder of  Studio Houndstooth with Jo Pierce, a materials and textiles studio.
Other residents participating in the Weaving Futures season include: Assemble, Beatwoven, Philippa Brock, Camira, Central Saint Martins, BA Textile students, Samuel Dempsey, Linda Florence, Gainsborough Weaving Company, Eleanor Pritchard, Rare Thread :  Kirsty McDougall & Laura Miles, Josephine Ortega, Ismini Samanidou, Studio Houndstooth: Jo Pierce, Takram & Priti Veja
Resident artists and designers have been invited to respond to a project brief; exploring the role of textiles in modern transport now and in the future. They will focus on ‘untapped’ sources of data generated by, or helpful to, the transport system. Their responses will then be interpreted into woven textiles, live for museum visitors.
Creative responses may span from future speculations on data capture and its textile use, to new methods of digitising human interactions, to creative interpretations and visualisations of existing TfL data sets.
Weaving Futures is jointly Curated by Philippa Brock and Samuel Plant Dempsey. The weavers for the season are Rosie Green & Hanna Vinlöf Nylen.
Images & Text: with thanks to Samuel Plant Dempsey Priti Veja & Philippa Brock. Images 1&3 – Veja, 2 – Dempsey, 3&4 – Brock
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