Optic fibre & embroidery (PP)

Shadows & Lights:
Tracing the Contours of Grief

Here's a recent collab project by Asmita and me, brought together for a subject we had in our last semester of college, to work on a little surface embellishment project which we always wanted to work on! It's a textile installation based on five stages of grief by Kübler-Ross. A very frequently asked question, why grief instead of happiness, we wanted to explore more with this as the inspiration.

This was a much-awaited project, and finally, it was happening! This project started as a shapeless playground full of textures and different types of surface embellishment materials. And little by little it started evolving into something bigger and more important- we even thought of making it interactive in some way possible and exploring materials in that direction!

During our extensive research, we serendipitously discovered optical fibers and their potential applications in textiles, which immediately intrigued us. As it was within our reach to procure the material, and with the help of our faculty, Sayandeep Sir, we delved much deeper into the technical intricacies of optical fibers, their functioning, and the exciting possibilities of incorporating it into our art piece.

In conclusion, it was Optic Fibres X Embroidery! Below is a brief sum-up of optic fibres.

After 2.5 months, we succeeded in achieving the highest propagation of light through the optic fibre. We tried different permutations and combinations of weaves and fibres, as detailed in the attached summary. The process was fun!

FROM obtaining almost negligible propagation TO hitting the jackpot with a good flow of light passing through the optic fibre, yayy :)

Then again after a lot of trials and errors, we decided to activate all the optic fibre swatches through a clap switch (the circuit was outsourced). That was 5 individual clap switch circuits for each stage of grief, as mentioned in the introduction, which was connected to a main circuit box. A glimpse of it:

Back to the surface embellishment part of the project, this was simultaneously going on. Here goes my collection of textures, a treasure trove inspiring the embroidery journey ahead (pictures taken from Pinterest.)

These are some of the techniques incorporated into the panels. As there are 5 stages of grief according to the theory, we crafted one panel depicting each stage. Subsequently, we split the work between us and we started exploring on small swatches of the strikoffs of the dyed velvet fabric. Here are the parts of the panels done by me.

We experimented with various techniques to achieve a batik effect on velvet fabric, such as wax dipping after dyeing or applying wax beforehand. Subsequently, we applied this following method to dye the five velvet panels.

A BTS clip! The wax vessel caught fire, but thank god no one was harmed.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

After countless months of embroidering, at long last, all five panels were COMPLETED! We used blanket stitch, running stitch, chain stitch, and lots of french knots. Panel 2, 3 and parts of panel 5 were done by myself.