Evolution Revolution

Soft Wall, freestanding wall
Tyvek and industrial felt
Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen. Molo Designs, Canada.


RISD's new exhibit, Evolution Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles

A new exhibit at the Rhode Island School of Design Art Museum entitled "Evolution/Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles", ( February 22 - June 15, 2008) promises to be interesting, and it in on my "to do" list for the weekend. Curator Joanne Ingersoll, quoted in a recent interview in American Craft Magazine's web site, say's "...around 1995...I started observing a lot of designers who were being impacted by the digital revolution, but rather than dismissing it, they saw it as liberating—they were showing me things that were a merging of high technology and the hand."

It makes me think even deeper about graphic design product design, any design being created today, and how technology affects it's development in both negative and positive ways. These are all issues that I address in my new book, BEYOND TREND ( available 7/11/08), but I never really thought about the impact on craft...nor even a connection with craft, so this exhibition fascinates me.

The CRAFT article, by Marc Kristal, states a new vision for craft in our culture, something which we might lable as a post Arts & Crafts movement..... Krisal say's "the similarities between then and now inspired Ingersoll to mount “Evolution/Revolution,” which showcases over 20 international designers, artists and architects, all active in fashion and textile design, who represent what, in the curator’s view, amounts to a latter-day Arts and Crafts movement: makers responding to the world-altering cataracts of the digital age by using technology to innovate creatively, take greater ownership of the production process, and incorporate ideas about sustainability, community and human rights into industry.