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    Changing materials: From household products to haute couture

    From the university magazine Zett

    Claudia Caviezel in her studio in St. Gallen. Photograph: Anita Affentranger.

    Published on 27.08.2023

    Author Leoni Hof

    • Art Education
    • Campus

    It is as if we were in her studio: at the Museum fรผr Gestaltung Zรผrich, award-winning textile designer Claudia Caviezel offers insights into her richly faceted work.

    She has never worked stubbornly towards achieving her goals. Discussing her work, Claudia Caviezel often repeats one idea in particular: โ€œOne thing led to another.โ€ Like turning a kaleidoscope, new and equally interesting images keep coming. โ€œCaleidoscopeโ€ is also the title of an exhibition now running at the Museum fรผr Gestaltung Zรผrich, which provides insights into the textile designerโ€™s work.

    Like a potpourri, the exhibition is meant to illustrate how my works are interconnected.

    Claudia Caviezel

    We are meeting in summer, when Caviezel is buzzing. She is painting, making ceramics, scanning their surface, printing the scans in large format and experimenting with different structures. On display at the exhibition are textile objects, large-format prints and sketches. It still remains to be decided whether visitors can touch some of the fabrics โ€” which Caviezel would like. What is certain, though, is that the exhibition will not be chronological. โ€œItโ€™s about my colours and materials, about my world. Like a potpourri, the exhibition is meant to illustrate how my works are interconnected. I always work on several projects in parallel. When one falters, I move on to another. That way they cross-fertilize each other.โ€ She has a large stock of photographs and scanned material in drawers, but also in her head. โ€œCaleidoscopeโ€ intends to make her working methods tangible.

    Caviezel has always wanted to work with her hands. Her mother comes from a family of tailors, her father from a family of carpenters. โ€œWeโ€™ve always made things ourselves. Iโ€™m not particularly conceptual. But when I have something between my fingers, it works.โ€ Stepping into the weaving room at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts for the first time blew her away: a wall full of colour spools! She knew immediately that she had come to the right place. Looking back at a career spanning twenty years, she remains as intrigued by the complexity of textile design as when she started out. Painting, knitting, embroidering, knotting, printing, sewing, pleating. Caviezel has worked in interior design and for international haute couture, has designed household products and created installations in public spaces. What all her works have in common is that they interweave traditional crafts with digital tools.

    After studying textile design in Lucerne, she spent five years working at Jakob Schlaepferโ€™s, one of the worldโ€™s most renowned haute couture textile manufacturers. Next, she studied design in Madrid and traveled through Europe with a creative troupe. Back in Switzerland, she first worked independently, but was soon hired by Akris, the Swiss fashion designer, where she was responsible for textile design and sample procurement, and conducted innovation research. Today, she is freelancing again โ€” with an open mind and an unswerving desire for experimentation.

    Does her experience never get in the way of inspiration? โ€œHaving ideas is never a problem. Mind you, Iโ€™m most creative when I do things last minute. I carry projects around quite long, so when a deadline approaches, I get stressed, but I have to endure that. By now, I know thatโ€™s what it takes. I perform best when I donโ€™t have all the time in the world.โ€ As so often in her career, one thing will probably make the other. We can convince ourselves of this by looking at and through the โ€œCaleidoscope.โ€

    • โ€žGronoโ€œ fรผr Atelier Pfister, 2016. โ€žGronoโ€œ fรผr Atelier Pfister, 2016.
    • โ€žNaturalezaโ€œ, 2014. โ€žNaturalezaโ€œ, 2014.
    • โ€žVitreo Brazilโ€œ, 2023. โ€žVitreo Brazilโ€œ, 2023.
    • โ€žTokyoโ€œ, 2015. โ€žTokyoโ€œ, 2015.

    EXHIBITION

    โ€œClaudia Caviezel: Caleidoscope,โ€ until 7 January 2024
    Museum fรผr Gestaltung Zรผrich, Toni-Areal, Pfingstweidstrasse 96
    Information and opening times: museum-gestaltung.ch


    LEONI HOF
    Leoni Hof co-leads the Content and PR team at ZHdK University Communications.

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