1. State of the art, project management and documentation¶
Research & Ideation¶
Wool is going to be the center of my project and of weekly assignments whenever applicable.
What is wool?¶
It's a natural fiber that grows from the skin of sheep and is one of the oldest fibers known to humanity. Wool is a sustainable fibre with excellent properties, like thermal and acoustic insulation, moisture absorption and odor control. It is biodegradable and offers eco-friendly alternatives to plastics in many fields!
Why choose wool?¶
This precious material is probably one of the main reasons I'm here. This summer, I started collecting data and studying its use in Sardinia. I was shocked to discover that farmers complain they are not paid much for their wool and that the unsold wool, classified as "special waste" with high disposal costs, is constantly illegally burned or buried. I'm fascinated by the power of waste, so I thought I would learn more about the topic.
What information have I collected so far?¶
I started using a Google Docs to collect data I found on websites and articles and then created a visualization in Canva. Most updated information I have are about 2023.
Thanks to the partnership with EU Woolshed, I now have access to more accurate information and I will be updating my documentation as I go.
What about my final project?¶
I don’t have a clear idea yet, but I want to explore processes, do research, talk to people in the sector, and identify opportunities to propose solutions based on real needs.
I see this as a collaborative journey: rather than “falling in love” with my own idea, I want to listen to communities and members of the program and co-create meaningful proposals.
References & Inspiration¶
Collective heritage¶
FIGURES IN THREAD is a short documentary by Francesco Carta about the female artisans preserving Sardinia’s textile heritage through the traditional art of weaving, using techniques dating back to the Nuragic era.
This project becomes more than a reportage: it is a celebration of resilience, artistry, and cultural continuity. Nowness
MARIA LAI was a Sardinian artist who created textile books and turned her small village Ulassai into an open-air museum, weaving together houses, people and memory through works like Legarsi alla montagna (1981).
Leg.Arti is now an international artist residency in Ulassai, where local identity and collective practices continue to carry forward her legacy.
“This is what art is for: to make us feel more united. Otherwise we’re not human beings.”
SARDINIAN TEXTILE WORKSHOPS
La Robbia is an artisanal workshop dedicated to natural dyeing, preserving ancient botanical knowledge while creating sustainable, colorful textiles and objects.
Maria Antonia Urru is a historical company of craftsmanship that created tapestries using three main local techniques in collaboration with contemporary designers.
Studio Pratha is an experimental creative incubator in a small village where contemporary designers meet the last custodians of an 8,000-year-old tradition, who have preserved an extremely rare vertical-loom execution technique.
Art from what remains¶
Vanessa Barragão creates art pieces that reflect her love for nature, using recycled materials and ancestral technique.
Junele processes and uses natural fibre fashion waste collected across the UK to create customized and biodegradable artworks.
New uses of wool¶
Brebey ("sheep" in local language) is a Sardinian company that produces panels made from sheep's wool.
Woola is an Estonian company that uses waste wool to replace plastic bubble wrap. Their packaging is used by ecommerce and luxury retailers to protect products during shipping.
Technologies and human bodies¶
Riley Cox (2024 Fabricademy Alumna) worked on an open source jacquard loom as her final project, allowing for individual control over 100 threads.
Margrét Katrín Guttormsdóttir (2023 Fabricademy Alumna) in her final project, transformed the data of the dance movement into textile patterns which were then elaborated on the loom.
Singer and musician Imogen Heap frequently uses Mimu gloves, advanced wearable musical instrument. In a Tiny Desk Concert, she explains how they work and uses them for performing her famous song "Hide and Seek".
Documentation workflow¶
Week 1 means "Gitlab" and "Markdown", which were completely unfamiliar to me. I have some experience with programming languages like SQL and C++ but I have never worked on websites. I studied the material, made many attempts and errors and did my best! 😊
Content¶
I have started drafting the content for the two pages ("index" - "week01") in Notion, moving to Grammarly very soon for simultaneous corrections of my English sentences.
In parallel, Diane Wakim, part of Lyon team and ex-alumna who created this amazing site, shared some suggestions to complete the assignments without going crazy.
Meeting notes and tips
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Don’t do important changes at the last minute because it can take time to update your site
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To upload all images through "Web IDE" use the folder “Images”. You can create subfolders for specific week.
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You can use any font available in Google Font. You can also change colours and themes but it’s not mandatory, only if you have enough time.
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Use “yml.” file to change name and top three lines above. Don’t touch spaces in “extra”, otherwise you get an error.
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If you a “cross” after a change this means there is an error. Don’t touch more the website, it’s better to fix the issue right away.
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When you work on weekly page (e.g. week01) remember you are at a second level vs image folder. So add two points at the beginning of the sentence "../images".
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Talk about wool!
Images¶
Once I had defined the contents or at least the main ideas, I focused on the images, optimized them and uploaded them to the folder.
But the image did not display correctly on the web!
Note: I placed it several times for testing.
And when I searched online for it by following the path, the output was:
Of course, this happened on a Saturday, so I had two options:
1. Wait until Monday and ask Diane/the mentors/the community.
2. Try to fix it! I'm stubborn sometimes, so the answer seems obvious.
Steps taken:
- I watched again the tutorials and my notes on Documentation and Gitlab, the process was correct.
- I reviewed the images uploading process in Alessia Pasquini site (ex-alumna) as I found it useful. Once again, everything seemed correct.
- Finally and looking at the process more closely, I figured out the problem. My photos were in ".jpeg" format, but I was typing ".jpg" in "web IDE" and images were not processed correctly.
Lesson learned
Remember to pay attention to image formatting and, more generally, to details.
Look and Feel¶
The idea at this point was to improve the layout and readability, but for this time let's complete the evaluations without errors.
Extra: I have the chance to play with font, colors and logo! I followed the instructions we have as comments in "mkdocs.yml".
But I had a error message after submitting the changes!
It happend again over the weekend but don't panic. I searched for a solution and followed this official guide to undo my changes.
To do this, you click on "Revert" in the upper-right corner of the commit. You can then create a "revert report" or do it faster without creating a report first (by unchecking the box). Everything's fine again.
I finally changed the color, font and icon and now the "mkdocs.yml" is set like this:
