Dr Lynn Tandler
- Tutor
- Textiles MA
Lynn is a weaver and an academic. She has been the Weave and Yearn (Research) Tutor at the RCA since 2017. Her academic interest has long been on the evolution of weaving techniques and weaving practices across the world – past, present and future.
More recently, Lynn has been working with conservation practices; researching how they may inform the evolution of more sustainable design practices.
Lynn teaches on the Textiles MA programme, while also supervising PhD candidates in the School of Communication & Design. She has been teaching on Across RCA, and contributed to the Creative Education course as a guest speaker. Alongside her teaching practice, Lynn has been the co-editor of Vol 2: Wovens in the upcoming Encyclopaedia of World Textiles ( Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
She is a regular peer-reviewer for the Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, the Design Journal and TEXTILE: Craft & Culture – where she also sits as an editorial board member.
Key details
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Research interests
Lynn’s research is driven by insights from textile conservation practices and the ways in which these can suggest or guide better sustainable design methods and construction practices in textiles. She has a keen interest in local knowledge that sits within communities, and the clues that this may provide to inform the evolution of sustainable textile design practices.
Before that, Lynn’s research evolved specifically around the evolution of weaving structures, techniques and practices, and the development of new structuring potential through weave. Her PhD in weaving - title: ‘The Role of Weaving in Smart Material Systems’ - has shaped her early years as a researcher and her keen interest in woven architectures and the structural hierarchy of constructed textiles. Her views around textiles continue to inform her understanding of them as unique material systems.
With background and experience in textile design, during this time Lynn worked jointly as a textile designer, and an academic researcher - exploring materials applications and aesthetic possibilities. Her ongoing research and explorations have highlighted the distinct difference between the two textile industries of manufacturing and craft; shifting her focus increasingly to local and traditional forms of knowledge, their inherent innovations and their relevance to our manufacturing profiles today.
External collaborations:
- Editorial board member, TEXTILE: Craft & Culture journal.
- Employer Validation Panel, NCFE
- Janie Lightfoot Textiles, Conservation and Restoration Studio
- Charity Trustee, ‘Friends of St Anne’s Church’
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Dormor, C. & Tandler, L. (eds) (forthcoming) The Encyclopedia of World Textiles, Vol 2: Wovens, Bloomsbury.
Tandler, L. (forthcoming) 'How Smart are Smart Textiles?' In: Jefferies, J., Jiang, K., and Norris, L. (eds.) (forthcoming) The Encyclopedia of World Textiles, Vol 10: Textile Future, Bloomsbury.
Tandler, L. (forthcoming) The Evolution of Weaving Technologies. In: Dormor, C. & Tandler, L. (eds) (forthcoming) The Encyclopedia of World Textiles, Vol 2: Wovens, Bloomsbury.
Dormor, C. and Tandler, L. (forthcoming) The Language of Weaving. In: Dormor, C. & Tandler, L. (eds) (forthcoming) The Encyclopedia of World Textiles, Vol 2: Wovens, Bloomsbury.
Tandler, L. (2018) The Smart Textile Problem and its Implication for Teaching. ICERI2018 Proceedings, 2018 (1), pp. 2618-2624.
Tandler, L. (2016) The Role of Weaving in Smart Material Systems. Doctoral thesis. Northumbria University.
External Collaborations and Activities
- Editorial board member, TEXTILE: Craft & Culture journal.
- Trustee, Friends of St Anne’s Church.
- Researcher,
- Janie Lightfoot Textiles, Conservation and Restoration Studio (2024/25).
