Material Play

2020

Material Play was created during my MA in Ethical and Sustainable Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts. It revolves around tactility, playfulness and wellbeing, focusing on supporting people with their mental health through textiles. Activities involving the hands have therapeutic benefits, especially for people with communication and emotional difficulties. Fiddling and fidgeting are related to stress and anxiety, but as playful activities they can also comfort, calm and stimulate. By intentionally designing opportunities to touch, explore and fiddle, this can develop engaging and playful designs for people with anxiety and stress.

The material play objects are all interactive and have removable and changeable sections which can be personalised. Material play creates a deeper bond between people and their material things through personalisation and consumer contribution within the design process. Creating rich interactions between people and things forms emotional connections which benefit their wellbeing, while also counteracting our throwaway society, as people tend to maintain the things they care about better. A mixture of second hand and biodegradable materials are used through knit and traditional craft methods to create the collection of objects.