Abstract
This paper investigates how natural dye printing and material agency in textile design can generate theoretical insights for design practice and pedagogy. Textiles are positioned as participants in material processes, where material behaviour, environmental exposure, and user interaction shape design outcomes, moving beyond stability and control toward adaptability, reflectivity, and sustainability. Drawing on critical making and time-based design thinking, impermanence and imperfection become foundational strategies for developing pedagogical and theoretical frameworks. Practice-based experimentation demonstrates how process, relationality, and sensitivity to materials allow theory to emerge directly from making and observing transformation. By embracing changeability, this approach reframes conventional notions of durability, value, and aesthetic perfection, offering a method for exploring how textiles can act as media of knowledge and design inquiry.
Keywords
textile design; material agency; natural dye printing; changeability; design research; design theory; imperfection
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2887
Citation
Šebeková, Z., Vicianová, P., Veselá, Z., Hank Palatínusová, B., and Machatova, Z. (2026) Designing with changeability: Material agency and theory in textile design, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2887
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Designing with changeability: Material agency and theory in textile design
This paper investigates how natural dye printing and material agency in textile design can generate theoretical insights for design practice and pedagogy. Textiles are positioned as participants in material processes, where material behaviour, environmental exposure, and user interaction shape design outcomes, moving beyond stability and control toward adaptability, reflectivity, and sustainability. Drawing on critical making and time-based design thinking, impermanence and imperfection become foundational strategies for developing pedagogical and theoretical frameworks. Practice-based experimentation demonstrates how process, relationality, and sensitivity to materials allow theory to emerge directly from making and observing transformation. By embracing changeability, this approach reframes conventional notions of durability, value, and aesthetic perfection, offering a method for exploring how textiles can act as media of knowledge and design inquiry.