"More than objects my outcomes want to trigger unknown experiences."

Miriam Ribul has just graduated from Textile Futures MA course at CSM with her final project 'Air Momentum', in which she has used textiles to document the movement of air. Her project concentrates on three different research areas: air as material, as a tool and as a design process.

Air Momentum questions our notion and understanding of space, through the performance of her textile pieces we are able to see, tangibly, the movement of the air around us. The tangible means in which she captures air include combining it with other media such as liquids and heat. This almost scientific approach along with her documentation of the processes allowed her to capture visually the behaviour of air:

"I wanted to visualise the behaviour of air and sometimes I used a scientific approach to document this. For example I documented how a person coughs, laugh and jumps and how the visualised air (in this case smoke) changes its movements and patterns."

Her research, as captured beautifully through photography, aims to promote the positive and poetical connotations of air, such as dreams, lightness and inspiration. Her desire to be outdoors and to film her project in nature reflected this optimistic character that she wanted her work to evoke. Miriam admitted that "To film and experiment in the “open” air, such as by the seaside and on the mountains for its strong wind is something I definitely still want to do."

Miriam cites her inspirations as the everyday things in life, from a breath of fresh air to noticing the subtle beauty in something otherwise unremarkable. This, she says is translated into her design process where her inspirations lead her to use natural materials from the spaces in which we live. This approach to the spatial and environmental aspects of design has lead Miriam to the works of Japanese architects who's works also evoke the pure and natural beauty of air; from Tetsuo Kondo 'Cloudscapes' to Junya Ishigami's 'Architecture as Air' these Japanese projects all share a purity of form and a dream-like quality which are clearly referenced in Miriam's work. Architecture has also influenced her and it was the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale where she first came across the works of artists and architects who were interested in overcoming the threshold between the indoors and outdoors.

Miriam's interpretation of 'Textile Futures' is that of challenging the traditional connotations of textiles as weaving or knitting and instead adapting these techniques to the intrinsic needs of their application. "I wonder if in the future, textiles will develop in as yet unimagined ways, benefiting from new manufacturing processes or as a result of everyday actions, such s the breeze created by a train passing by or the steam over a hot bath."

For more of Miriam's work and to see more of Air Momentum, visit her website.