Close to the body. An interesting title, that made us all clueless in the beginning about what it stands for, and how could it yield to a physical “product”. Our biggest surprise was by the end of the week, when we managed to merge four different motions and sensations together, in a very interesting wearable.

Our first day was a choreography exercise; it focused on feeling our bodies, making ourselves aware of our moves and our surroundings. Each of us explained (and acted!) their favorite activity in Valldaura. Our team individuals were touched by elements of: Growth, opening up, awakening your sensations, and balanced power. At the end of the day, we presented individual objects that manifest our ideas.

Lucas playing peacock!

A rooted tree?

Air Flag

Secure?

Defining a common ground for our projects to build upon: Our strategy was to act our motions individually, record them, then watch and analyze, by the end of the second day, we had a good variety of material exploration and a more or less defined frame of work:

Outline of every individual movement/object - By Sietske Klooster

Combining armor strength with delicate elegant wings?

We need a spine for balance and growth

Do you feel protected inside?

Our next step, was to narrow down our choices of materials, our motions and focus on one combined motion that will yield to one object:

By the end of this day, we had a clear idea of the feelings we want our wearable to reflect when you put it on: Stability with power, opening up with growth. Thanks to many of our colleagues and tutors who volunteers to try on our prototype and reflected on their feeling while being inside:

Continuing to work on our prototype with a focus on developing our wearable into becoming more inviting, while reflecting the sensations of power, strength and growth, in elegance.

Containing you gently by providing support to your back and shoulders, the piece invites you to grow, open up (when ready!) and become more aware of your surroundings, and your own sensations, by growing your delicate wings.

We are currently testing different material variation that we can adopt for the final prototype.

Photo and video credit:
Furqan Habib, Gerard Rubio
Lucas De Sordi, Marta Giralt
Moushira Elamrawy, Oscar Tomico