Sofia Guridi
Sofia Guridi (she/her) is a design researcher working at the intersection of textiles, electronics, and biomaterials to create interactive interfaces. Combining traditional textile knowledge with material experimentation, her experience ranges from applied research to artistic installations.
Borrowed Matter/Materia Prestada
Interactive biotextile installation, 2023Exhibited at London Design Biennale representing Chile
Borrowed Matter/Materia Prestada is an interactive multi-sensory installation composed of hand-woven biotextile pieces. The project aimed to explore innovative uses of tree cellulose as a biomedium while reflecting on its production's extractive processes and economic considerations.
The installation sought to connect biomaterial innovation and traditional techniques, emphasizing the importance of slow, embodied-making processes. The biotextile pieces were meticulously crafted using cotton, natural dyes (grapes, madder, and carmine), conductive yarns, and carboxymethyl cellulose, a by-product of the forest industry. Hand-weaving was the chosen technique due to its significance in Latin American material culture, serving as an identity marker, a means of communication, and a medium for knowledge transfer.
Throughout the month-long exhibition, the pieces transformed and degraded with the touch of visitors, exposure to natural light, and contact with water, showcasing these interactive textiles' transient and cyclical nature. Visitors were encouraged to witness this ongoing degradation, revealing a concealed text, and to interact with tactile sensors, uncovering hidden sounds of birds, looms, and the forest.
Credits: Designer: Sofía Guridi / Curator: Juan Pablo Vergara / Graphic Design: Gracia Fernández / Audio visualist: Víctor Leyton / Communications: Karla Riquelme / Production assistant: Diana Becares / Photography: Vertti Virasjoki.
YARNS.TXT.
Textile project, 2021Fabrics and clothing are often associated with beauty, comfort, protection, and playfulness. But as a soft medium for personal and collective expression, textiles are also a powerful communication tool. YARNS.TXT explores the role of textiles in the context of rebellion, as support to bypass physical and digital censorship undergone by governments all around the world.
Pleated structures, fading dyes, traditional weaving, AR, and electronics are combined to create an interactive experience where the visitors are welcome to discover the messages through touch, view, and sound.
This work was done in collaboration with new media artist Kiko Chen, during our Softislab Residency.
Talking Arpilleras
Textile project, 2018Exhibited at Fab Textiles Exhibition, Paris, 2018
Museo Violeta Parra, Santiago de Chile, 2019
Talking Arpilleras is a project that explores how the integration of new technologies can add value to a traditional textile technique, by adding new layers of information that enhance its main communicative effort.
The Arpillera is a textile technique characterized by using potato sacs as the base fabric. It was born as a way of political expression created by women to confront the violence and fear that resulted from Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship in Chile (1973 to 1990). Today, is still used to communicate issues related to Chilean and Latin culture, like violence against women and minorities' rights.
The creation of an interactive textile piece was made in collaboration with Chilean artisans from Melipilla, adding electronic components like conductive thread, conductive fabric, soft sensors and microcontrollers.