Undone is a material investigation and meditation on synthetic textile manufacturing cutoffs from the upholstery industry that aims to transform the waste of "what is" to be the future of what could be.
The end product is not just a Tote Bag, an approach to designing soft goods for disassembly to encourage our material world to become undone and re-knit into something knew.
To become undone is to sacrifice habitual comfort and fully embrace the uncertainty of the tangles that lie ahead
Recycled Knit Tote, Emma Cali, Machine Knit, hand-tied reclaimed yarn, 2022.
Recycled Knit Totes on the Body, Emma Cali, Machine Knit, hand-tied reclaimed yarn, 2022.
The photo above walks through the process of making the project, starting with the woven factory cutoffs, to the spooled cone from the threads of the fabric, to the product and its material swatches
To better understand the material and its potential, I explored a wide range of machine knitting techniques to find its most intriguing qualities and behaviors to help guide me to my finished product.
Process Video This video details the fabrication process of this project, from "making" the recycled yarn from the woven fabric scraps, to machine knitting a sample swatch
Undone-Process Book-Print.pdfEmma is a Senior in the Product design undergraduate program at Parsons. Her practice always returns to materiality and waste, as she sees much potential in what “could be” from what has already been made. Over the past 4 years at Parsons, she's have found design thinking to be not only an academic endeavor, but a hopeful and empathetic way of approaching daily life.
Design is her means of interrogating and navigating the daunting effects of climate change on all facets of life, and she hopes to utilize an artistic lens coupled with her design thinking methodologies to make impactful contributions where the world needs it most.
Name: Emma Cali
Email: emmacali2000@gmail.com
https://emmacalidesign.com/
Instagram: @emmacalidesign
