Mia Lisa Spon and Nadine Burkhardt have worked together in the studio at level 5 to develop a piece for the exhibition, Mindcraft 2023.
November 2023
“Piece by Piece, One Square at a Time” by designers and tailors Mia Lisa Spon and Nadine Burkhardt is a shared expression towards the importance of passing on traditions and the freedom and joy of creative collaboration. Developed through their involvement with Pure Fabrications, a signature patchwork is produced from three variants of raw cotton – a fine percale, a thick canvas and a dense canvas – each 10 x 10 cm section sewn together one by one to create an oversized sculptural form. Inspired by childhood memories of folding and constructing paper boats, Spon and Burkhardt’s reinterpretation spreads out over four meters in length – constructed from 25 sqm of fabric and 4500 meters of thread – with its soft fabric form held rigid through the use of fabric hardener that provides the finished work with a paper-like texture.
Words by The Mindcraft Project
From Garment Design to Textile Sculpturing
We are both tailors and usually working with garment designs, and with this project we stretch our craft and techniques to an object away from the body. It is an exercise to present the story of the craft and values in our work, without the functional requirements of making clothes.
The artwork is a textile sculpture that shows and underlines the aesthetics, values and sense of responsibility of our way of working as designers and craftswomen.
Inspired by the childhood memory of the paper boat, our intension was to create a full size, textile boat made from sewn-together leftover fabric patches.
The patchwork technique carries a story of shared effort and collaboration towards a common goal.
Designer Quote
“Our work is based on a two-sided creative approach. On the one hand, we have humans as the focus; how we live, eat, move and behave in relation to culture, nature and politics. On the other hand we are focused on our shared creative idiom – rooted in the encounter between worship of material, craftsmanship, objects, collaboration, work routines and immersion.“
Top image by The Mindcraft Project
