Designer, Hella Jongerius: Hello, I’m Hella Jongerius. I’m a designer.
I really believe in the power of experiments to make us look at the world in new ways. To achieve that, you first have to unlearn all the things that we think we know and organize our world differently.
The Unfoldable Cubes are multi-layered constructions woven on a jacquard loom. I used a blend of paper yarn in yellow and light blue. We use paper because it is flat, so it folds nicely. And with this paper yarn, we create stiffness for the structure. And then we engineer certain gaps with loose yarns that we cut open on some parts, and therefore you can unfold it—so this pop-up feeling.
The photovoltaic strips are these flat, shiny black tape. If the natural light hits the strips then the object will close and open, fold and unfold, like breathing, that makes the feeling that the piece comes alive. But because it’s in a museum, there’s not a lot of daylight, so now it’s running on a motor.
Textiles and weaving is a craft that we know for a very long time. Fast fashion created a moment that we are losing our knowledge, and that’s why I wanted to work on textiles again and try to find a way to lift this old craft into a future. We are all aware about the problems of the planet, but we can’t stop using textiles because we wear it, we live in it—it’s everywhere. That’s why we need to try to find new ways.