Finding MOMU

Finding MOMU

Antwerp Day 1 - July 2nd 2016

The old town of Antwerp is a wonderful mix of twisted streets, cobbles and quirky exteriors. Arriving in sunshine then being rained upon is always an interesting introduction to a place. The beginning of finding MOMU was crossing the market place mid market, always a joy of smells, colours, textures and people. A fabulous market. Lunch from the Turkish stand. The most amazing wrap ever of goats cheese, vegetables, olives, dates and honey, washed down with mint tea, all for 5 euros. The mix of families, people of all ages and backgrounds queuing for food and sharing the experience, a perfect Saturday.

lunch

people watching

           On through the high end shops, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, mixed in with local designers. The Antwerp residents a different mix of clothes again to Tilburg. More dresses. Less make up than the UK, a more natural look in quality clothes. There seems an awareness of good quality clothes and footwear. The city was full of shoppers, tourists, day trippers, residents and had a great sense of energy and wanting to see more and explore more. The Cathedral visible from most quarters.

Antwerp Cathedral

Nearly there

great vintage inspired store

80's remembered

           MOMU sits on a triangular shaped block of buildings, near to the Dries Van Noten store. An open entrance way with a wonderful moving wall of images from former exhibitions and current promotion. Right next to it is a seriously fabulous book shop akin to the V&A’s book store. Walking in, the atrium is broad, spacious and light filled, designed in teak coloured wood, imposing, yet contemporary, enticing you in with its sense of spectacle. The two reception ladies were really welcoming and informative and became the key to my visit. Finding out that it was Uniqlo Sunday the next day which meant free entry to the museum rather than the usual entry fee and a free T-Shirt.... Then getting the direct emails of the two people I needed to speak to. So a gateway opened and a plan created for Sunday, meant more time to explore the streets of Antwerp.

MOMU entrance

The Museum Shop.....

The Shop

You can always tell the quality of a museum by its shop and café.......Discuss?

The joys or not of the obvious commercial spaces of a museum. Often the last port of call in any visit and the one that can leave the most pertinent memory. The space in the Textiel Museum is beautifully laid out and as with the rest of the museum is to a high quality specification in display. The pieces for sale reflect what one has seen within the rest of the museum. Here is your opportunity to buy the Viktor & Rolf designed jacquard dishcloth with graffiti splurge or a table cloth designed by Droog. This was interspersed with a strong collection of jewellery made by Nederlands designers, felt and wool pieces and I even found a Margo Selby scarf. The space and the staff were all very welcoming and there were pieces for all price points. Good thing that I came with a full suitcase... lots of lovely new books I would have liked and some gorgeous textiles.

Margo Selby scarf

Gallery 4 - Design Challenges

Gallery 4

The transition from accomplished highly professional textile pieces developed through commissions  into a sampling and trial space was informed and innovative curation.  Gallery 4’s exhibition  examined the processes of the project ‘solar curtains’, a design commission from Qatar. The Gallery was laid out as small studio areas and displayed the range of yarns experimented with to develop the best fit for the project. The samples created from each yarn base and the critiques from these. Highlighting the many samples designers have to create to meet the client’s needs. Most of the pieces one could touch, to see and feel, how textiles has opportunities and isn’t always as we would expect. The exhibition was drawn to a close with a film showing the curtain design in situ. I found this to be a really informative space, a great pedagogical tool for design students whilst also informing a wider audience of how new textiles are designed and the boundaries that are being broken. 

More beautiful innovative textile pieces

A few more images

The renewed interest in textiles comes just in time to save the textile industry from extinction. The TextielLab plays an important role in that. We only have a few years left to breathe a new life into this endangered species’ 

LidewijEdelkoort, Trend Forecaster.

Gallery 3 - the Lab comes to Life

Gallery 3 & 4

As you may tell from my posts so far the Museum and Lab at Textiel Museum Tilburg are interwoven. They share the same vision to explore experiment, stimulate and innovate as true pioneers in developing new textiles. This is a truly unique asset and one to see as best practice.

           Past, present, theory, practice creativity and expertise converge to create strong                    futures.

By offering the space, time, means and materials to fuel further advances in craftsmanship, we look forward to keeping this heritage alive well into the future’

Errol van der Werdt, Director.

The Textiel lab produces an annual year book to share the projects, commissions and successes. When I first looked at these in the library I was amazed by the breadth of their projects and their passion and fearlessness. The wish to succeed and push limits. The focus on the potential for the textiles industry and what they can achieve through collaborative spirit and trying, failing and trying and succeeding is vast.

To then move into Gallery’s 3 & 4 and see the year books come to life was a privilege. The felt pieces by Claudy Jongstra that I had just seen photographs of were hung in front of me. The innovative Droog design group had used design and fine art constructs to create new works and maximise the potential of the materials.

 Looking through the Gallery exemplified the innovative vision and openness of the museum’s director and the Mondrian Trust who funded many of these commissions. The exhibition was readable by those new to textiles & textile art and its potential as well as those who were already inducted. The supporting videos and bilingual text supported this further. There were many pieces that I loved. The levels of acceptability and ease of reading the pieces added to the exhibitions value and openness to the general public. Most will find table linen easy to access, so with the artists reinterpretation of this through creating a modular cloth to add humour to place settings in unusual colours or weave patterns made through using music cards instead of jacquard cards, discussions begin and the textiles have a new life and narrative.

A little more on Tilburg

More areas:

On speaking with Stef Miero at Textiel Lab, the other areas that are key to the museum are the laser cutter which is a tool of increased interest and demand. The knitting area which had a range of small circular knitting devices and several long knit machines and tubular yarn machine. Again all were in use and there were lots of examples of completed commissions alongside the machines to show visitors what was possible and the range of work that is done within the Lab.

circular knitting machines. 

I was intrigued by the tufting area as I haven’t seen carpet looms up close before. The walls were shelved with cones and cones of wool of a myriad of hues, a perfect palette of shading from one colour to the next. Samples of what was possible were on the loom and along the side of the space. Once again the visitor was encouraged to look, engage and touch. This approach enables visitors to have a greater understanding of the textile and the maker and the skills and time needed to create.

There is a printed textiles area but there was a fine layer of dust around all the equipment. This was a skill that hasn’t been in such demand so for the moment is moth balled, showing the importance of adaptability and maximising resources.

mid production

explanation of manufacture

The other area that made me think of making and looking at new ways to work was the passementerie. Located at the back of Gallery 2, near the finishing machines, it included a range of small braiding machines and large braiding looms. The diversity of threads that could be used and the potential to create new textures, properties and opportunities for braid was exciting. I began leaping into hat making and creating new braid to replace straw which is difficult to obtain. The joy of museum and archive inspiration. Something new drawn from reflecting on past heritage, creating new possibilities.

Catching Up,,,,,,,,

Catching Up ------

I had promised myself to write daily and be diligent in capturing my thoughts from each experience. I have done so in my trusty moleskin notebook but not so in this blog. A day in archives and collections is more energy sapping than one expects.....such a poor excuse.

Back to Tilburg so many days and experiences ago now.

Gallery 1 – Textiel Lab

one of the small looms

Walking into the space the first time totally lifted my heart (bit extreme I know for blog writing!) Here laid out within a museum setting was exactly what I had aspired to within Hat Works and within the textile museums in Yorkshire. Textiles, artisanship, design and manufacture totally alive and well and moving forward. Not ignoring the past but aware of the history and skills and breathing in new life with sound commercial underpinning and an awareness of market needs.

Within the lab area is a design hub where meetings can be held and the managers of the space work. A weaving hub with a range of new high quality looms, the Lab work with Dornier Jacquard Loom company who appreciate and welcome the unique synergy between atelier and museum in leading to new textiles. Including 3 jacquard looms, 2 plain looms, one similar to the Yorkshire Hattersley, but powered by a static bike, which visitors can ride on and weave cloth. The jacquard card puncher was a particularly beautiful thing.

The looms were quietly humming away. On my first visit one was weaving cloth to be sold in shop as table linen, another was having its warp set up and I saw the magic created the following day by Belgium artist Otobong Nkanga. She is based in Antwerp and has worked with the lab since 2010 working with the skills of the team to realise her artistic ideas. The piece she was developing was based on topographical photographs and through the use of browns, golds and blacks on the jacquard she had created the first layers of her three dimensional landscape. I was fortunate to share the moment when her cloth was cut from the loom and cascaded onto the floor by Stef the Manager. Such an experience is one that brings a museum visit to life and creates such memories. All the techncians were working on projects at the different machines but all were happy to talk and answer questions .To be so close to a moving loom raises ranges of Health & Safety queries yet these seem to be manageable and increase the sense of belonging and being allowed to be within the space as a visitor.

Other areas in the lab included a machine embroidery area with a Brother and SWC machines. I spoke with the technician who was completing a commission for a British artist embroidering symbols onto ikat cloth. The handwoven ikat had taken a year to produce to the artist’s design then the lab was completing the work. Such a project is a big part of the lab’s work and generates important incomes.

Gallery 2 - The Machine Floor

The Story of Wool Cloth Production
From elements of previous work and projects the machinery around wool and worsted manufacture is a known commodity that I am fascinated by. Though I am not always certain as to what it all does and love to see it working to further educate and inform me. The display at the Textiel Museum is well laid out and accessible to those with some knowledge and no knowledge. On the two days that I visited the gallery there were several attendants on hand to share knowledge and work the machinery, which brought the story to life further. They were incredibly engaging and enthusiastic and were happy to share stories and answer questions. The signage throughout the exhibition was also highly appropriate with archive photographs, machinery knowledge and dates and where the machines came from. It was all highly illuminating in creating a working, contemporary and engaging museum narrative through display, volunteers, examples and signage.

The exhibition space begins with large sacks of beautifully clean wool tops that the visitor can touch and gain a sense of the materials used. Museum information is in a clip board style which I felt was really user friendly and not over facing. The historic pictures add to the scene. I did wonder whether there was a need for more such pictures but they could be elsewhere for visitors who are more interested in the history. There was a real sense of placing the story locally in Tilburg.

Wool sack and exhibition signage

The Devil's Mill

The 'Duvel Molen' Devil's Mill described the picking shed where all the wool was sorted to the desired blend before being dyed or spun. Back breaking work and highly dangerous.

Back of the Devils Mill and those scary teeth

the clocking in machine I did wonder if the workers of Tilburg were shut out from the factory gates if a minute late as the Yorkshire Mill workers were.

Heterotopia - the place for otherness

Museums as places for otherness

I took this reference from the book Fifty Years of the Textile Museum 1958-2008,   I consider that it very much sums up how I feel about museums and galleries. They are places for new ideas to be generated from past collections and stories. They can create humility giving us a new sense of place and time. The opportunity to see items that if it weren't for museums and archives we would lose.

The Textile Museum is striving to be a place of openness and freedom but within that the visitor and researcher needs security. Hence the notion of heterotopia. Somewhere that sits between public and private. Open to collaboration, new ideas, and sharing the production of textiles in the past, present and importantly future.

This was very apparent walking around the mill floor. Seeing the old looms that still work and tell the story of production then moving through the door and seeing the Textiel Lab in operation. New looms doing the same job as old. New designers working effectively with technicians to test ideas and create new work. Inspirational.