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ALIKI VAN DER KRUIJS PRACHI SETHI FC SEMESTER - IV
INTRODUCTION
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My interest for natural elements dates back to the beginning of my work and sometimes when I look around in my studio it seems as if I was building a library of the Earth with projects about the weather, water, light, geology.
Aliki van der Kruijs is a Dutch textile
designer and artist with an experimental, playful and innovative mind-set. Her fascination for natural phenomena comes back in all of her work, in which nature and its elements are subject, tool and matter at the same time. Her work moves in the intersection of art, research and design. Aliki is educated in Fashion Design (BA Artez Art Academy, 2007) and Applied Arts (MA Sandberg Instituut, 2012). She operates a studio in The Hague, the Netherlands and works on self-initiated research-projects, collaborations and commission based. She is guest-teacher at the Akademie van Bouwkunst in Amsterdam and the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design. During her Masters in 2012, Aliki transformed her graphic and fashion design background into a textile oriented practice.
THE PROJECT
Aliki graduated with the project Made by Rain: a collection of weather data: visual recordings of a drizzle day or even monsoon, imprinted in textile. This work included an extensive research involving the relationship between colour, culture and nature with a specialisation in textile. The project Made by Rain is an ongoing research and by working together with ZigZagZurich the original results of the research is applied onto home textiles. (ZigZagZurich collaborates with artists and designers, both established and new, on unique collections transformed into textiles). This project is one way of Textile register of rain fall at a specific location. Each unique cloth is accompanied with its actual precipitation data of location, time and weather conditions. Her work method involves planned manufacturing however integrating a certain uncontrolled ‘natural’ element in which the coincidence is programmed, leading to a collection of tactile piees of work.The aim is to make a rain-atlas with all the imprints Aliki collects.
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The wonderful thing about rain is that it outlines the contour of the immediate landscape around your. You hear the space. — Quote from a blind man.
There are two ways of making these rain textiles - analogous and digital. The analogous version involves using the ink-paper above the layer of textile for the ink to seep onto the textile, when the rain hits and the paper bleeds hence achieving the print. The digital version is prepared with a layer of ink already on the cloth, leading the ink to bleed as the rain hits the surface. Thereafter, after confirming the rain- data from the weather station, the information of each textile is screen-printed onto the textile. The location, date and time, interval and milimeters of the rain are recorded. Made by Rain was initiated by an intention to ‘map the weather’ with the idea of creating a textile register. Aliki’s research started after she inherited twelve calendars from her grandfather. On these calendars he described the weather, every single day of every year. After her grandfathers example, Aliki started to map the atmosphere. Only whereas he wrote it down, she made it visual. In time she developed a new printing technique she now calls ‘pluviagraphy’. By use of a photographic film that is sensitive to water, she is able to transfer rain precipitation onto textiles. Later, these prints are fixated onto the textile using a series of chemical treatements.
The textiles form a collection of weather data: visual recordings of a drizzle day or heavy rainfall, imprinted in textile. It results in unique cloths that are given their actual precipitation data of location, time and weather conditions. Whenever van der Kruijs would see another rainstorm approaching, she’d hurry up on the roof and catch the drops on large sheets of fabric. Initially Aliki did tests on paper and that works out as well, a more fluid quality of the material – textiles work like magic for this technique.
DOCUMENTATION
The first textiles that are rained upon were made in Amsterdam, thereby recording the Dutch/Amsterdam weather conditions. However this project could travel anywhere, making it a useful tool to visually record a natural phenomena that is normally measured and noted in weather charts, satellites and graphs. With the production process Aliki also anticipates to the increasing precipitation in the hydrological cycle. For instance the climate changes could be noticed in the prints over a long period of time, as rain in The Netherlands has increased by 4% in the past fifty years because of it. Aliki has so far applied the fabrics to a silk scarf and a fashion collection. She also described the entire project and process in a publication called ‘Made by Rain’. The process is documented in a book, responds to the increase in precipitation intensity due to climate change using collaborative projects in fashion as one of the messengers. Made by Rain is an ongoing project. Just like a rain shower, every set of textiles is one of a kind.
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Overall natural processes influence my visual language. Either I use rain, as something unpredictable. Or I create a work method where there is space for an uncontrolled element. I really like this tension between setting parameters and creating space for thing to occur/happen.
COLLABORATION
After these textiles where applied into the duvet covers of ZigzagZurich or KD Tees by Nike, people knew better how to relate to the textiles and the project received immense appreciation. Nike launched a graphic t-shirt with Aliki’s print for the KD collection of basketball player Kevin Durand inspired by the player’s love for metereology. It is available in three colours. With allover graphics that reflect a wet effect on the front, back and sleeves, these Nike KD tees pay tribute to “The Weatherman” with his logo on the sleeve and a Swoosh tag at the hem. In the collaboration with the fashion designer Elsien Gringhuis, Aliki used her framework (shape of the clothes) to come up with new ways to print and paint on textile. It worked as a playground for those new techniques. One letting the shape of the pattern dictate the print, and the more fluid result is a ‘foldand-water’ technique that brings unique print results.
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With these silky soft bed sheets you can sleep underneath the weather that afternoon was unstable, with blue skies alternating heavy rain showers, and there’s something so beautiful about it.
A SCREENSHOT FROM THE WEBSITE