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.
Read the beautiful text about the workshop written by Anna-lina who joined the workshop.
Landscaping in Fabric Workshop
Sunday 8th of June 2025, 10:30 – 12:30 (+ 12:30 – 13:30) @ Bubble Box (Piet Hein Kade 233 – corner door)
Text by Naomi van Dijk
Over the last 2 years, design researcher Emma Huffman buried several fabric patches in the ground in different locations – allowing them to change. Dug up from these environments after several months, they showed traces of passing seasons, became food for creatures and fungi or fully dissolved back into the soil.
Generally, designers, scientists and engineers develop materials in order to eliminate change. This one constant in our ecosystem, change, is made invisible or excluded from the objects we surround ourselves with. Though change is everywhere throughout the process of becoming that object: from plant to fibre, to thread and cloth, drawings reinterpreted by machines.
Change is rarely uniform but happens unevenly—some parts transform, others persist. This irregularity, or patchiness, mirrors how transformations unfold in landscapes and in knowledge: uneven, contingent, shaped by specific conditions. Learning what changes to expect, or better, what specific changes teach us about our environment gives us the tools to better care for ourselves and our surroundings. In this session we focus on what close observation allows us to notice about subtle shifts in a landscape, a body or materials.
This research session begins with close attention to the materials brought in by Emma. Rather than searching for patterns that explain or solve everything, we take a situated approach. Logging this process we hope to discover what we may notice when attuning our attention to the speed and scale of non-human others. We work with what is there—marks, holes, changes—as ways to explore how materials, environments, and perspectives transform.
The research process
In this research session, we invite participants to spend time with the altered fabric pieces Emma Huffman buried and unearthed. After an introduction to her work by Emma, we will start the session by noticing and logging our observations. After that, each of us will work with one of the patches. Using techniques like embroidery, darning or other thread-based techniques we will respond to these observations on the fabric. We welcome diverse perspectives and ways of working.
If you take part in this research session, you bring home Emma’s designed workbook. When the patches will be displayed, you will be credited as a contributor to the research. A downloadable workbook will continue to be available after the workshop. The session will take two hours, with one extra hour if you wish to continue your process.
Emma Fukuwatari Huffman 