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photo by Talia Hodge
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photo by Talia Hodge
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photo by Talia Hodge
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photo by Talia Hodge
Different colors and textures abound in a tent-like structure with stretchy tubes that aims to appeal to people of all ages and all sensory needs. It’s 8 feet tall and 20 feet long, made of textiles like nylastic and polyester yarn, and held up by fiberglass rods. Explore it at the “Knitting Beyond the Body” exhibit at the Kent State University Museum.
“You can stand up inside of it, but you can also pull it up and down, you can swing it, twist it side to side. It has a lot more freedom to engage the different sensory interactions,” says Sean Ahlquist, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, who created the piece, has an autistic daughter and researches how to create sensory environments that are interactive and inclusive for disabled or neurodivergent people.
“Knitting Beyond the Body,” (on display from Sept. 29 to Aug. 1, 2024) is based on cutting-edge research from the School of Fashion’s high-tech KnitLab, which has cross-disciplinary partners like Kent State’s Liquid Crystal Institute and Design Innovation Hub. The exhibit brings together artists who are focusing on innovation through textiles and knitting. See examples of garments and products used in fashion, medicine, interior design, architecture and more.
For Ahlquist’s piece, which has many versions, he worked with a University of Michigan engineering professor to make sure it stays standing but also with the community he’s hoping to reach by getting feedback and doing redesigns. “There’s definitely a community collaboration,” he says, “working with different therapy centers, with public schools, with the disability community.”
“Soft Boundaries II,” another piece in the exhibit, was made by Krissi Riewe Stevenson, a Kent State assistant professor of fashion design, and Jennifer Meakins, a University of Kentucky assistant professor in the School of Interiors. It is a partition that’s approximately 72-inches-tall, made out of recycled polyester yarn wrapped around tubes stuffed with pool noodles.
“The front textile is not stretchy but the back is,” Stevenson says, “so it lets it kind of curl and move.”
The pair worked together to brainstorm the piece, try out and select materials and program a digital knitting machine from the KnitLab. That kind of back-and-forth collaboration allowed the duo to amp up from their previous “Soft Boundaries I” knitted works, which include a chair, wall panels and a garment.
The bigger scale makes the piece jump off the gallery wall, and that’s exactly what you should expect to see at the exhibit.
“It kind of folds and meanders and comes off of this sort of hard, white box of a typical museum space, and is able to really create something different,” says Meakins. “We’re able, because of our collaboration together, to look at other disciplines and bring them into each other.” 515 Hilltop Drive, Kent, kent.edu/museum