TextileLab Amsterdam at Waag FutureLab has been operating since 2015 and throughout its research projects and methodologies, it has developed an operational model for researching with a systemic and holistic approach, mapping and contextualizing its innovation efforts. This model is also at the core of the research agenda, the lab’s vision and the projects the TextileLab team is working on. It creates an overarching structure that organizes the resources TextileLab creates and offers, in a fully open source manner, while communicating its vision for a more sustainable textile and clothing industry. According to TextileLab, changes in this industry require a holistic approach to promote positive interventions. The lab embraces the complexity that emerges while working towards positive alternatives, acknowledging that change is only possible when the multiplicity of needs are accounted for and the different perspectives are understood.
Explore how the model is based on the research project portfolio and almost 10 years of operations. A model that embodies systemic thinking, and is designed to ensure a holistic approach in creating change in textiles.
The model and its lenses
This model departs from a values-driven vision, and a way of working that embraces interdisciplinarity, holism and communities that are locally active, but globally connected. TextileLab strives for a textile industry that is open, fair and inclusive. The model is not a straightforward tool, but rather an approach to navigate the complex and networked questions the lab is researching. Through five different lenses TextileLab aims to always take into account the industry and its complexities as a whole, while working on a specific research question. Questions can be related to a particle of one of the lenses: materials, processes, tools, systems and culture, or at the relation between these particles and these lenses. The tools someone uses affect the way of making; the way someone makes affects the system, the system cultivates culture, et cetera.
The model is not prescriptive, but gives a direction, an indication of how to approach a complex question and can be used in an open, process oriented way. This prevents the lab from thinking in a simply linear manner in terms of problems and solutions, and to stay open to unexpected possibilities and solutions that are rooted in reality. Since this model has an open and reflective character, it leaves space for different research disciplines and different ways of knowing, while working on mutual literacy and a shared understanding of the topics and its jargon.
Three levels of dilution
The research is executed and shared with a variety of actors, divided in three main groups. With peers coming from different disciplines, the lab explores and executes the actual practice based research. With different local, national and international networks the lab exchanges and shares findings through open source documentation. For different communities the lab offers presentations and events that showcase its mindset, stories and narratives that can inspire and ignite all kinds of projects and activities.
Within the Local Color project, these three levels of dilution are put into practise, offering meet-ups with different aims, set-ups and participants of audiences.