Call for expressions of interest

As we have moved into the 21st century, the expanding borders of Europe have shifted the reference points of nationhood. Demarcations of traditional geographical borders are in flux, cultural groupings are located in multiple centres, no longer defined by the limits of state.

Transparent Boundaries is a trans-national collaborative project in which textile practitioners and architects explore lace net-works as a potential medium for the questioning of traditional perceptions of the intransigence of material, political and personal boundaries. For example the ‘Fences’ project by artist Lise Bjørne Linnert, in which she embroiders red thread around spaces in wire fences separating contested areas, as in the West Bank.

We’re seeking partners

Professor Lesley Millar and the University for the Creative Arts are currently developing an EU Culture Programme Bid for the Transparent Boundaries project. We are in the process of seeking suitable European partners at two levels:

• Funded joint project partners
• Partners to be part of a dissemination network

Far reaching objectives

The project has the following objectives, to:

• Question the materiality, form and purpose of boundaries and enclosures.
• Develop lace net-works as a means of forming series of connections, surrounding, but not enclosing space, forming boundaries and affording access. For example, Japanese architect Toyo Ito, when searching for a means to connect interior and exterior space has said that he: “…could reverse the relationship between interior and exterior by combining them from outside to inside with something like a tube as in a network.”
• Consider and analyse the social impact of lace and lace net-work structures on community inter-connectedness.

New working partnerships

This project will place textile practitioners and architects in creative trans-national and interdisciplinary working partnerships. Partnerships will be established in three countries between a textile practitioner from one country and an architect from another country and be linked to a university. Each partnership will be required to identify and develop a joint project e.g.:

• a community project taking the interconnected nature of lace net-works as its starting point.
• an architectural feature using the potential offered by lace structure to form spatial links between walled off space. For example, the Piazza San Marco where the highly defined main space of the Piazza becomes less defined along the permeable lace like arcaded edges, providing a transitional space from light to shadow, from the exterior to the interior.