Portfolio

Researching Form in Knitwear

2017

Pallas Art College
Supervisor: Kairi Lentsius
Photos: Andero Kalju , Pawel Orynicz & myself
Materials: Wool & mixed

The study explores the rules and requirements for garments typical of the Western world in order to escape and oppose them. I define the form through yarn floats rather than abstract silhouettes or pattern cutting rules by knitting the form and material in a single process. Form is an emergent rather than imposed

Gnidry

2020 – ongoing

Photos: Marin Sild, Sigrid Osa, Pawel Orynicz,
Illustrations: Myself
Materials: Mixed

Gnidry turns the yarn floats in knitting from something impractical to something exciting. By shifting the yarn floats, the shape of the garment changes. They can make a two dimensional piece three dimensional. Where they form, an opening is created in the fabric. Pattern cutting turns into a whole new game.

Broken/whole
Finished/
unfinished?

2020 – ongoing

Part of the master thesis, Estonian Academy of Arts
Supervisors: Piret Puppart and Julia Valle-Noronha
Photos: Kirke Talu and myself
Materials: mixed
Photos: Marin Sild, Kirke Talu, myself
Materials: Mixed

Materials are always in motion – longing to run amok. With the help of the water soluble PVA thread, knitted loops get loose in contact with water, leaving behind a world of structure that is both regulated and random. Opening up a garment to unravelling removes the focus
from the ideal state and “finished” or “broken” loses its significance. Sweater obtains a state of becoming instead. The piece can continue to live on its own, gradually reverting to yarn.

“. . . the body has been gradually fading the
garments, quietly abrading away material.
Perhaps it piled it elsewhere? Similarly to how
the wind sculpts sand into boulders and
water carves canyons. These are the small
surface formations that life has created on
my surface. Only life is capable of such organic design. ”
Author’s diary

Sweaty
Sweaters

2021 – ongoing

Part of the master thesis, Estonian Academy of Arts
Supervisors: Piret Puppart and Julia Valle-Noronha
Photos: Albert Kerstna, Pawel Orynicz and myself
Materials: PVA, wool, hemp

Dirty and broken items have a lot in common. Both represent deviations from their ideal state. Dirty things need to be cleaned, and broken things need to be repaired. Garments that cast doubt on these two concepts seek to de-emphasize their obviousness – to rethink them.

Plain sweaters represent a rather anonymous wardrobe basic, something we all have in our closets. What if I can use the sweaters to create a physical “sweat diary” of a 21st-century city dweller, prompting the body-mind to continue making the sweaters, thereby transforming them from anonymous to personal?

The wearing process becomes a study in which emotion, action, time, environment, and body – in addition to the material and technique – are all intervening. Intuitive design is being taken to a new level when dynamism of living is in charge.

Workout Sweat

Asian Food Sweat

Sauna Sweat

Permissive
Perishability

2022

Part of the master thesis, Estonian Academy of Arts
Supervisors: Piret Puppart and Julia Valle-Noronha
Photos: Kirke Talu, myself
Materials: PVA, cotton
Further development for Broken/whole Finished/
unfinished? and Sweaty Sweaters

The case study for the seemingly undiscovered ideas of preprogrammed fading comes from the most recognised fabric in the world – denim. So, what if a sweater could deceive your instinctive, tacit recognition into thinking it’s denim? Is it then “allowed” to be ripped? Once again, water soluble PVA yarn makes the sweaters accessible to being moulded by life.

There are two distinct structures– one for sweat and one for rain – to play with “dirty” and “clean” humidity. Contrary to sweat, rain is the ultimate emblem of purity and new beginnings. Thus, rain causes the clothing to become clean, whilst the sweat causes them to become dirty.

Designed by sweat or rain, ugly-pretty denim sweaters – are they in the end beautiful or are they ugly, dirty or clean, broken or whole?

Jeans worn
and mended
by Kristjan

Rain sweater

Sweat sweater