Womenswear
Soes Christine Hejselbaek
During my two years at the Royal College of Art, I have developed a body of work within bio-design, virtual realms and installation. I’m operating between technology and synthetic biology, between machine and organism. My continuous goal is to unite these two world views, moving away from assembly and closer to growth. I believe that art, design and architecture can and have to do more.
Critical and speculative design with the purpose of furthering a sustainable future is my ultimate goal, and I work across the disciplines of fashion, architecture and bio-design to reach unique solutions. Innovation to me is no longer about invention, it’s about reinvention. I’m dedicated to eradicating the climate emergency by the means of computational design and additive manufacturing, using materials found in nature, for them to eventually return to the planet and form a circular economy.
I’m the president of The Sustain Lab, a student organisation dedicated to sustainability within the Royal College of Art through creating spaces, workshops and exhibitions. I also consult as part of the Sustainability Working Group within the university as the voice of the entire student body.
“Bodies narrate our reality, determine our stance. Realities flow into one another, like forcefields of dimensionality, like steps on a ladder. In spaces navigated through bodily encounters, every cell of a whole reaches a symbiotic relationship. Real and imaginary, tangible and out of grasp, poetic stories emerge in a whirlwind of philosophy, ontology and science.” Disseration: Real Virtuality - An Exploration of Spatial Embodiment.
Founded in the theory of Proxemics, the study of human interaction in space, I’m asking the question; “When is it a garment, and at what point does it become a space that we inhabit?” Through 3D modelling, motion capture of the body and 3D animation, I’m able to visualise the journey from the form of the body to its surrounding space.
In my work I focus on designing out waste streams. Specie consists of photosynthetic 3D printed body architecture, converting CO2 in the atmosphere into oxygen, informed by data sets on waste streams in our waterways and oceans. Made from robotically extruded biodegradable materials derived from cornstarch and infused with Spirulina algae. Through digital sampling and additive manufacturing, we can create from our oceans and work towards a circular system. Specie serves as a speculation on the future of fashion.
I developed a fractal growth algorithm in parametric modelling, simulating the shape of river networks. Another algorithm then mapped and assigned this network onto three dimensional forms around the human body drawn in virtual reality.
The sculpture has a carbon footprint of 125 g. of CO2, which will be eradicated over time by the algae’s natural photosynthetic process of storing CO2 and producing oxygen - of cleaning the air as it were.
With this work I’m exploring the concept of ethereality, diagrammed bodies and invisible networks. I refer to the scholar Donna Harraway and her thoughts on tentacularity; “The tentacular are not disembodied figures. They are beings like humans, neural extravaganzas, fibrous entities, fungal tangles, swelling roots. The tentacular are also nets and networks, it critters, in and out of clouds. Tentacularity is about life lived along lines - and such a wealth of lines.”
In the current social climate, it is time to create value - to design for humanity and for the ancient nature that created us, and I believe I have a voice within that pursuit.
I will close with a quote from artist Olafur Eliasson; "Sometimes the river is the bridge."
