Braiding to Connect

Braiding to Connect is a collaborative project with researchgroup Soft Connection Lab at xSchool of Arts Gent, designed for and executed during Design Fest Gent in Industriemuseum Gent.

Soft Connection Lab is looking for ways to repair and strengthen the emotional connection between one another, and with our surrounding material world. For their first presentation during Design Fest Gent 2022, Soft Connection Lab invited me to work in close collaboration with them on developing a participative and collaborative making performance, which resulted in 'Braid to connect'. The performance, where we invite the audience to participate and form a giant braiding maching with us to create valuable artefacts, reveals the special dynamics of creating together and enlarges the textile technique of braiding, making it more insightful. We explored if and how the collective energy stimulates the emotional relation between makers, consumers and objects, and if it, in doing so, functions as a catalyst for sustainability.

A few of our research questions:
Which traces does this participatory process leave on the created object? Does it give the object an intangible added value? Can we breathe new life into forgotten textile techniques by adding the aspect of 'it being selfmade' or 'collective effort'? And can this unifying design attitude function as a catalyst for sustainability?


For more information on the colaboration with Soft Connection lab and their ongoing research, visit their website by clicking here. For other questions, please feel free to contact me via info@fransjegimbrere.com.