Min Zhong

My thoughts for the collection started with my recent journey to Tibet. I was really astounded when I came across plots of land, truly belonging to nature. My brain was affected and refreshed by the wild landscapes, sensations I have never felt in a modern and industrial context, and really wanted to transfer these feelings to my designs. I took many pictures, but I think they are records of what I saw, not what I felt. I do think textile design has its own language, composed from the vocabulary of materials, patterns and textures, which I wanted to use to express my feelings. I started by refining abstract concepts from my photographs, before transferring these back to physical fabrics. I really enjoyed the process of communicating my feelings of the the world through my fabrics.

 I did some research into methods to express emotions, including Chinese freehand painting. In Chinese freehand paintings, artists focus more on painting their feelings and how to put their emotions into the landscape they are painting. I was also concerned with the language of materials and by undertaking experiments, I chose the most suitable yarns to be the vocabulary and the most successful structures to organise these vocabularies into a landscape poetry.

 I hope through interacting with my fabrics, the viewers can connect with my feelings towards nature, being refreshed and temporarily forgetting their modern and industrial surroundings.