Section of Sensation

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 'Section of sensation' was a submission to the inaugural Tapestry Design Prize for Architects, an initiative of The Australian Tapestry Workshop. The prize was established to engage architects and designers with the art of tapestry and to reinvigorate the centuries long tradition of the role of tapestry as architecture (Semper, an architectural historian claims the first architecture was woven wall). The competition brief asked for designs to respond to the new Australian Pavilion in Venice as a hypothetical site. The call for submission was national and drew an enthusiastic response from a number of key Australian architects. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The concept of 'Section of sensation' was developed by myself, and I then invited collaborators to develop the creative work submission. My research engages with interior/interiority and also textiles (for example, 'a matter of time. 16th Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial' where, as commissioned curator, I explored time and affect through a selection of textile and fibre works that toured). The Tapestry Prize brief presented an opportunity to research the potential of textiles as an interior intervention that produced an encounter with sensation. Rosamund Scott, a PhD candidate I am supervising, engaged her research into watercolour painting as part of the submission. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: From a total of 42 entries for the prize, 'Section of sensation' was shortlisted as 1 of 8 finalists. The judging panel was composed of an esteemed architect, academic, art curator, textile artist and architectural photographer. Our submission together with the other short-listed works was then presented in an exhibition at the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne and later, at the Stylecraft Sydney Showroom - a commercial interior design showroom engaging an audience who came from across textiles and interior design/architecture.