Work
Repair and Workshops
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Making Mends Archive Vol.1
We created a photo-zine from a selection of many creative mends documented during the Making Mends workshops we hosted in the past three years! Making Mends Archives Vol.1 contains photos of 33 mending projects, 11 visible mending exercises, and 29 mended leaves from the over eleven Making Mends Workshops we’ve hosted in Japan, the Netherlands…
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Making Mends Kids @ MTRL KYOTO
What does it mean for something to break? Why do we repair? How do we repair? A playful workshop for children to think and learn about mending.
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Exhibition : Hoe leer ik jou kennen?
The past few months, I have been hosting Mending Evenings at Lola Lijn, a new buurtkamer (community center) in Sloterdijk, where many residents have recently moved into the area. The bi-monthly evenings were slow, quiet, and a lot of fun. Some residents came and went, and some became regulars. We were all strangers in the…
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Mending Evenings
Mending Evenings are free, casual get-togethers for repairing clothing and other textile items organised by volunteers. Stitchers and menders of all levels are welcome! It is a space for mutual learning and exploration. Currently, I am part of the Mending and More Monday Evenings, which take place twice a month at LolaLijn!
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What is in our clothes? Making sense of textile materials @ VU
Dr Jane Tynan and Emma Huffman lead a hands-on activity to think about the textiles in our daily lives as part of the Conviviality, Fashion & Networking event at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
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Exhibition – Nieuwelingen 2025 @ Van Eesteren Museum (Landscaping in Fabric)
20 June – 6 July 2025 @ Van Eesteren Museum. Opening Friday, 20 June at 17:00
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Landscaping in Fabric Workshop
6 participants joined the workshop on a rainy day in Amsterdam. The outcomes of the workshop will be exhibited at the van Eesteren museum from the 20th of June.
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Movements of Gifting
How would you choreograph the movements of wrapping and unwrapping to make the experience special? I developed and facilitated a playful workshop in collaboration with PASKAMER.
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Visible Mending Workshop at ArtEZ Graphic Design
I led two days of Visible Mending workshops with ArtEZ Graphic Design students during the 2025 project month, CHANGE IS POWER.
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Visible Mending in de Doopsgezinde kerk
For the pop-up exhibition Heilige Huisjes by UtrechtDownUnder and FAAM.
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Exhibition – FUNGI FUTURES @ (Con)temporary Crafts Studio
Multiple objects and samples from the project “Mending with Mycelium“ were on show at (Con)temporary Crafts Studio in Bremen, DE for the exhibition FUNGI FUTURES. Photo by Philine von Düszeln
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Sneaker Repair and Maintenance Workshop by Footwear Care Lab
Designed and executed workshops on sneaker care and repair at Amsterdam House of Arts & Crafts.
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Making Mends Workshop in Almere
See the visual report – The English/Dutch edition of “Minna to Fuku wo Tsukuro” workshop held in Almere, Netherlands.
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Visible Mending Workshop @ Centraal Museum Utrecht
Commissioned by Crafting Resistance as part of the workshop series for the exhibition “Spuiten en stikken“.
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Making Mends – ミンナでフクをツクロウ in Tokyo
See the visual report – A visible mending workshop designed and hosted by Studio A-lot-of-things hosted with SIGHT SITE STUDIO (MIDORI.so, Bakuro Yokoyama).
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Visible Mending Workshop @ Museum Speelklok
I gave a visible mending workshops as part of the program for Maak ’t Even, an exhibition exploring sustainable production choices at Museum Speelklok in Utrecht, NL.
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Making Mends – Practices of care as a transformative research practice
A Making Mends workshop held in collaboration with Sanne Koevoets, DIT Platform of Erasmus University Rotterdam and Salot.
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STITCHING TOGETHER:Community Building through Sustainable Fashion
I was a speaker at the round table with Jane Tynan and Cloud Meijerand, and served as the visible mending workshop facilitator for an event hosted by VOX-POP, University of Amsterdam.
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ミンナでフクをツクロウ
See the visual report – A visible mending workshop designed and hosted by Studio A-lot-of-things hosted at Okamoto-Tei, Kyoto, Kyoto, JP.
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Visible Mending Workshop
Designed and facilitated monthly workshops on the history of Boro and visible mending at Mediamatic.
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Design for Circularity 01
Studio A-lot-of-things, Emma F Huffman and Danika van Kaathoven, designed and hosted a workshop aimed at Design students to learn and actively practice Circular Design Thinking. Learn more here
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The Kinjiya and Mycelium
Read here – A picture book of Kinjiya (co-mender) who mends sneakers with Mycelium and more beings. Developed during the research project Mending with Mycelium.
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Mending with Mycelium
Developing and exploring an alternative reality where we repair objects together with mycelium.
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Introduction to Visible Mending
A little book of my first attempts at visible mending and stories of my friends and their clothes.
Illustration
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Illustrated letter set for my friend Aska
My friend Aska is the most fude-mame (筆まめ, a Japanese word for someone who frequently writes letters) person I know. She fills every birthday card from top to bottom and left to right, with her beautiful handwriting. So, for her birthday this year, I wanted to gift her a personalised letter set. Another thing about…
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Website for Rhythms of Love
I created a multi-language informative website for Rhythms of Love, an anthropological research project exploring long-term romantic relationships.
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Days in Amsterdam
Days in Amsterdam is a collection of illustrations based on my personal memories; a mixture of mundane everyday sceneries, special moments and a dash of day dreams. Calendar designed with Zhizhong Keene.
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Illustrations for Fragmentary Institute of Comparative Timelines
In collaboration with Poiėtica, I drew the illustrations for the website of FICT; an international speculative anthropology project imagining alternative worlds where colonization by the west did not happened.
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The Kinjiya and Mycelium
Read here – A picture book of Kinjiya (co-mender) who mends sneakers with Mycelium and more beings. Developed during the research project Mending with Mycelium.
More stuff I’ve worked on
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Podcast: Hoe leer ik jou kennen?
Dit verhaal werd gemaakt tijdens Oorzaken Podcast Academy Nieuw West 2025. http://www.oorzaken.org
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うなじ / Nape
Author: Tobias Mud, Daichi Fuwa Translation+Editing: Emma Huffman Design: Orange Slice Type Printing/Binding: Intime, Seoul Publisher: Juice Press, Seoul
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Photography for Exhibition SNEAKER EVOLUTION
Photos for social media content of Footwear Care Lab and Schoenenkwartier.
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Exhibition – SNEAKER EVOLUTION @ Schoenenkwartier
24 May 2025 – 6 August 2026 @ SchoenenKwartier See details on the website
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Touch Match Soft – The soft power of designing rules
Touch Match Soft is a sensory game to find matching pairs of cushions trough the sense of touch and sound. Commissioned by Magnet for Touch Planet at Dutch Design Week 2024.
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Meet the Mushroom
Video entries as Nob, the Kinjiya, for the #Meetthemushroom challenge for Fashion Fictions by Amy Twigger Holroyd.
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Hato Poppo
How can we think and act like pigeons? Maybe by acting like one! Hato Poppo is a simple origami pattern for human-sized pigeon beaks.
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Interpreter for Textile Summer School
EN/JP interpreter for the lecture series and the research development meetings between the Weavers in Japan and Researchers in Europe.
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Underwear of the Possible Future:Biological, computational and sustainable design
A collaborative and speculative research project with Wacoal, Synflux and Kyoto Institute of Technology.
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Fabric Re-engineered as Fabric
A collaborative research project to design for up-cycled waste fabric with colourloop, Studio monoya and Kyoto Institute of Technology.
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Internet Jam
A latent protest against the oppression of free speech on the internet. With Mio Hatakenaka and Yuki Hayashi.
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Time-lifting
Tired of your bull-shit job? We have a secret tool kit for you and your co-workers to unite and get work off 15 mins early without your boss noticing.
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Slight – Haptic Remote Controller
What if digital devices, like remote controllers, were designed to be pleasant and playful to touch?
Interested in working together?
What I offer
Workshops
Making Mends* Workshop
A hands-on, creative, and playful visible mending workshop. 90 minutes to 3 hours long depending on your goals and needs. Suitable for teenagers and above.
Ideal for team building, birthday activities, and supplementary activities for universities and museums.
*Making Mends Kids available (Recommended ages: 8-12 y/o)
Examples
1. DIT program, Erasmus University Rotterdam, NL
2. Midori.so Tokyo, JP
3. Centraal Museum Utrecht, NL
4. Making Mends Kids at MTRL Kyoto
Custom Workshop
I design playful, engaging workshops for your students’ learning goals or target audience of your exhibition or event.
Ideal for team building and supplementary activities for schools, museums and universities.
Examples
1. What is in our clothes? Making sense of textile materials for Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
2. STITCHING TOGETHER for VOX-POP (University of Amsterdam)
2. Movements of Gifting for PASKAMER
Illustration
Cards for special occasions
Personal cards to share important life events with special people. Ideal for birth, wedding, death, and more announcements.
Commission
For publications, websites, and more.
Examples
1. mooi-mooi magazine
2. Rhythms of Love Website
About Me
I like to work reactively, spontaneously, visually, with my hands using accessible resources. I think this is why I like Visible Mending and drawing.
With Danika van Kaathoven, I created Studio A-lot-of-things (Salot) in early 2022. As a duo, we are curious about how workshops can be a playful time and space for knowledge sharing, collecting, and producing. Currently, we are exploring the radical potential of repair by combining workshops, research, and hands-on making through our Making Mends workshop series.
In 2023, I created Footwear Care Lab with Isabel Wolfs and Jesse Oeinck to collect and share DIY ways to care for sneakers through hands-on workshops and our website.
In March 2022, I obtained my Master’s in Design at the Kyoto Institute of Technology with my project Mending with Mycelium. My Bachelor’s degree is also from KIT.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with
Design Impact Transition platform of Erasmus University, VOX-POP of University of Amsterdam, ArtEZ Graphic Design Department, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Museum Speelklok, Van Eesteren Museum, Mediamatic, Utrecht DownUnder+FAAM, PASKAMER, MAGNET, RAUM Utrecht, Munchmuseet (with MAGNET and KEIKEN), LolaLijn Buurtkamer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Let’s get in touch
email: efhuffman[at]gmail.com
Instagram: emm.ahuff