FROM AN ANCIENT CRAFT TO A NEW FLEXIBLE FABRIC
But what if wood could be made flexible? This is what
Langenhuijsen set out to do as part of her search for innovative
materials. Her quest has taken her to the South Pacific island
of Tonga, where locals beat the bark of the Paper Mulberry tree
to make cloth. As part of her Wooden Textiles project, she has
documented this ancient craft in a film and expanded the principle
to create a new, flexible fabric. Experimenting with techniques
often only applied to textiles, such as dyeing and embroidery,
she has displayed them in an ‘inspiration book’ to showcase the
full potential of wood as a basis for fabric. Further developing a
number of these studies, she has created a collection of interior
textiles.