Design Questions – Designs for Flies + Woven Light

Artists: Frank Kolkman, Michelle Baggerman

The Kyoto Institute of Technology is known for its research excellence in the materials, life and information sciences and fibre technology.

In the KYOTO Design Lab Design Associate Programme, a young designer from abroad or within Japan is invited to work collaboratively with a Kyoto Institute of Technology professor on an ongoing research project for which design applications are required.
The aim is to harness Kyoto Institute of Technology's research expertise and external networks using design innovation to address pressing social and economic issues and underscore the key mediating role design can play in interdisciplinary projects.
This exhibition centres on two recent three month-long projects from the KYOTO Design Lab Design Associates Programme. They fall within KYOTO Design Lab's Designing Social Interactions and Making and Materials themes and were led by Professor Julia Cassim.


Works
Designs for Flies
The project was a collaboration between Frank Kolkman, an experimental designer from the Royal College of Art, Professor Masamitsu Yamaguchi of the Department of Applied Biology at KIT, the Centre for Advanced Insect Research (CAIR) and Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT) Japan. It built on research by Professor Yamaguchi's team on the building of a genetic map for CMT and the use of drosophila as a research methodology and addressed issues relating to both.
http://www.frankkolkman.nl


Woven Light
Michelle Baggerman is a designer from the Design Academy Eindhoven whose research focus is the combination of craft and technology alongside sustainability in textiles. Woven Light builds on the work of Professor Teruo Kimura from the Department of Advanced Fibro-Science at KIT and Masaki Ebara of Ebara Textiles, a specialist weaving firm in the Tango prefecture that weaves silk fabrics for religious garments and temple hangings. Their 14 denier transparent silk is the finest produced in Japan but no product applications beyond stoles have been found for it. The project brief was to identify new scenarios and develop product concepts for traditional silk when used in combination with plastics.
http://www.bureaubaggerman.nl