Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg

Textile Lab - Behind the scenes

The TextileLab is the workshop and the beating heart of the Textile Museum. Here, product developers, students, designers and artists work together in creating the newest, most exciting and original textile products. In doing so they use the innovative textile machinery that is present in the lab. What sort of products are made in the TextileLab and how these products are established can be seen in the presentation ‘TextileLab - behind the scenes’ on the PlatForm of the EntranceBuilding.

The TextileLab offers designers, artists and students an inviting workplace to experiment. There is a range of textile techniques to be found, from computer-driven knitting and weaving to laser cutting and hand tufting. With the specialized expertise of the staff who work in the lab, customers of the TextileLab get the chance to optimally realize their designs into finished products.

The presentation offers a look behind the scenes of some of the innovative and prominent projects that were carried out in the TextileLab in 2009. The emphasis is on the process from design to finished product. On display are sketches, photographs, models, yarn studies and samples made in the process of creating the final product. With these objects visitors get a good overview of the steps taken in the realization of different types of textile projects.

The presentation features work by Studio Job, JongeriusLab, Kiki van Eijk and Scholten & Baijings. Studio Job, an internationally renowned design studio, called upon the TextileLab for the realization of their exhibition ‘Alter Ego’ in the Belgian Gaasbeek Castle. For this collection the designers created sculptures inspired by Northern European (art) history. Together with the TextileLab the duo developed woven double face furnishing fabrics with a design of skeleton and insect patterns.
Commissioned by Italian furniture manufacturer Vitra, Hella Jongerius/JongeriusLab developed the ‘Vitra Colour Laboratory’. In the VitraHaus in Weil am Rein in Germany, visitors can experiment with materials and colour combinations. Parts of these studies of colours and materials were carried out in the TextileLab.
Kiki van Eijk and design duo Scholten & Baijings worked on their project ‘Total Table Design’ in the TextileLab in 2009. In this project the designers presented their views on the art of dining by designing two laid tables. The project had its world premiere at the Object design fair in Rotterdam, was later exhibited at among others the Audax Textilemuseum Tilburg and was presented with great success at the international furniture fair Salone del Mobile in Milan.

In most cases the final works are now in the possession of museums or the commissioners of the works. Some of the works are exhibited on the PlatForm, others are can be seen on photos. Of all these projects the intermediate products are exhibited and the processes illustrated. Visitors can see and feel the objects presented to them, and are thus taken on a sensory tour through the production processes of the TextileLab.

This TextileLab presentation is the first in a series of presentations that will be given twice a year. In each presentation, the most prominent and innovative work from the previous period will be shown. The 7th of July the first edition of the English 'Yearbook' was published in which the work from this presentation can also be found.