Gunta Stolzl , Slit Tapestry Red-Green, author: Gunta Stölzl, 1927–1928.

Talk

Gunta Stölzl and textiles in space

Building on Bauhaus

Friday 8 November 2019 6.30 - 8pm

The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly

£15, £9

Booking opens to Friends of the RA at 10am on Thursday 1 August 2019. Booking opens to the public at 10am Tuesday 6 August 2019.

Supported by

Join a designer and architect to explore the role of textiles in architecture and design and the parallels we can draw between the luminary work of Gunta Stölzl at the Bauhaus, and contemporary high-tech material innovation.

The final event in our series celebrating Bauhaus women turns to Gunta Stölzl and her efforts at making the heavily gendered textiles of the weaving workshop compatible with the architectural innovations of her time.

By positioning Stölzl as an innovative precursor to high-tech experiments with weaving, colour and materials, we ask an architect and a designer to speak to the way gendering manifests in contemporary material experiments. We also ask about the extent to which materials and colour have become secondary in today’s design practices.

What, if anything, do contemporary experiments with both owe to early twentieth century luminaries like Stölzl? And what are the structural barriers that contemporary designers continue to share with the women of the Bauhaus?

Speakers

Libby Sellers (chair) is a design historian, consultant, curator and writer. She was formerly a curator at the Design Museum, London and now focuses on writing, client consultancy and freelance curation for institutions including the Serpentine Galleries and other commercial galleries including Nilufar Milan and Friedman Benda New York. She is the author of Women Design: Pioneers in architecture, industrial, graphic and digital design from the twentieth century to the present day published in 2018.

Ismini Samanidou is an artist, trained at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art in London and is now based on the South coast of England. Her practice spans drawing, photography and weaving, and her output ranges from individual exhibition pieces to site-specific commissions and collaborations.

Jane Hall is a founding member of the London based, architecture collective Assemble who work across the fields of art, architecture and design. Jane’s particular focus is on collaborative practice between artists and architects, which she explores through installation and exhibition design. She is the author of Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women published in 2019.

£15, £9

Booking opens to Friends of the RA at 10am on Thursday 1 August 2019. Booking opens to the public at 10am Tuesday 6 August 2019.

Supported by