10.10.26, 15:00, Soft Connection Lab, Learn to Braid
We all know knitting and weaving, but what about braiding? Time to rediscover this forgotten technique! In this workshop, the team at Soft Connection Lab will guide you through four clever basic movements: Crossing, Winding, Twining and Pulling through.
Using their self-designed oversized tools (Hard Tools), you will unravel an age-old craft in no time. You will learn how relaxing braiding can be and how naturally it connects with sustainable design. Think repairability, smart disassembly and reuse. Roll up your sleeves, meet fellow makers, and discover how bringing people together through making can create meaningful connections!
Participation is free, but registration is mandatory via softconnectionlab@gmail.com. Don't wait too long, capacity is limited to 12 participants!
Soft Connection Lab
Soft Connection Lab is a Ghent-based research project (KASK & Conservatorium) centred on the power of making together. Inspired by age-old braiding techniques and the ritual of the maypole dance, the lab explores how hands-on craft can bring people closer again. In a society that often feels distant, the team uses the making process to encourage care, empathy and dialogue. Alongside the creation of an object, building meaningful human relationships is equally important.
Soft Connection Lablectureresearch presentationAgendaOnderzoekSoft Connection Lab is giving an online lecture in the context of New York Textile Month. You can follow the lecture for free from 16:00 to 17:00 (10:00-11:00 New York time).
Soft Connection Lab is a four-year research project at KASK & Conservatorium. Within the Lab they explore the possibilities to restore the emotional connection with each other and our material surroundings. In a world increasingly dominated by digitalization — which disconnects designing from making — they believe in the value of hands-on experiences, fostering deeper connections with the material, the object, and the people they are interacting with.
During the talk, they are happy to introduce their newly developed methodology that aims to stimulate a conjunctive design attitude. They will share their experiences and interesting footage on the ongoing research. Inspired by forgotten artisanal textile techniques and the social cohesiveness of maypole dancers, the team has researched transversal creative making methods which add an intangible emotional value to the created objects. Besides scaling up and slowing down to enhance insight, they’ve developed a set of four Soft Tools. These four Soft Tools function as their new design vocabulary and contain various obsolete braiding techniques. With these four tools SCL aspires to restore the emotional bonds between makers, consumers, and objects.
Parallel to the talk, they’ll launch our design challenge Healing through braiding. They invite enthusiast makers to use our Soft Tools to heal an object, transforming it and imbuing it with new significance. By exploring repair and restoration, emotional links can be forged between individuals, their material world and society.