Slumming It

TECHNO-FOLK AUTUMN/WINTER

Dharavi is one of the most densely populated places in the world. One million people are crammed into one square mile of slums in Mumbai, India. It is an extreme urban environment, completely unplanned and homemade.

The appearance of the slums looks almost like patchwork. And despite its poverty, the place has a strong sense of community, high employment and very little crime.

“I strongly believe that the West has much to learn from societies and places which, while sometimes poorer in material terms are infinitely richer in the ways in which they live and organize themselves as communities” Prince Charles.

I am interested in highlighting both the positives and negatives of life in a slum settlement. There is very little space in each slum so space has to be flexible to fit peoples needs.

There is also virtually no privacy.

I am interested in showing the raw beauty of the place through print, knit and stitch.

I started by creating a miniature slum set-up out of cork, wood, leather, scrap materials, corrugated cardboards and papers. I then did a series of drawings and photographs based on the building. From these I developed a colour scheme of deep purple-blues, bold pinks, bright oranges and contrasted them against a variety of neutral shades – concrete pinks, faded stones and dirty greys.

Inspired by my discovery that even the poorest slums often appear to be decorated with religious ornaments and their walls covered in photo frames, garlands and pictures I began to do some line drawings and collage painting.

There is a brilliant contrast of the highly patterned and coloured with the hugely disorganized, decayed and faded. Rusted metals, warped wood, plastics and cracked concrete in blocks and stacks are covered in beautiful fabrics, garlands and picture frames.. Mixing these images with line drawings of the slums I developed my patterns on photoshop and in my sketchbook.

As I took my designs into knit I combined thick lambswools with almost transparent threads to emphasize the lack of privacy and density of the slums. Ribbing and tuck techniques were used to describe the corrugated metals and partial knit and intarsia to create blocks of bold colours.

I printed onto think felts and light cottons and scrap fabrics to emphasize the mix matched unplanned nature of the shanty towns.

For contextual research I looked at designer Michael Van Der Ham whose debut collection of 12 dresses, made in a jigsaw of fabrics are bringing a modern patchwork twist to the catwalk.

Michael Van Der Ham

I also looked at fashion knitwear designer Naomi Barber-Rodgers who uses transparent threads alongside panels of fine-gauge merino to create floating stripes of colour.

I also researched furniture design brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana who are well known for recycling discarded and unused materials into expensive chairs.

My intentions are to combine my pieces of knit with my mixed media and digital print samples to create my own patchwork jigsaw dress, which will emphasise the curious juxtaposed world of the Dharavi slums.

some CAD work:

This project was entered into the annual Society of Dyers & Colourists (SDC) Competition where it came 1st place in the Scottish heat and then 2nd place in the UK final. This involved me going to Aberdeen for the regional final and then down to Nottingham in May for 2 nights for the UK final. It was a great experience for me as a designer and showed me a real insight into the industry in which i hope to soon be working in!

me standing beside my design boards with my 2nd place certificate!

Nottingham, 7th May 2010