Toile de Hackney, Surface Design Exhibition, London Business Design Centre

‘Toile de Hackney’ is a collection of interactive textile hangings that combines both intelligent textile technology and traditional hand screen-printing. This is inspired by the classic French ‘Toile de Jouy’ textiles which were originally produced at Jouy en Josas (France) in the late 18th century. This collection emerged from the main direction of my research into poetic textiles for smart homes. Three “toiles’ were commissioned by the Design Laboratory and exhibited in the ’Sensory Gateway’, a group exhibition featuring innovation in surface design as part of the Surface Design Show in March 2005. Toile de Jouy is a classic that is reinvented constantly by most designers. Toile de Hackney is in effect a collection of intelligent animated textiles which depict daily scenes of Hackney in London. Using ethnographic visual research, which aims at mapping the cultural and visual characteristics of the area, a design narrative is constructed in reference to the traditional ‘Toile de Jouy.’ Once again the reference to tradition aims at challenging our perception of domestic textiles, this time by using smart technologies. In my interpretation the toiles can be “on” or “off”. When switched on, the imagery gradually changes colour and reveals new hidden stories. The production of each "toile" derives from an iterative process between electronic testing and the use of thermochromic screen-printing