Makers Space Profile #7: Lottozero/ Textile Laboratories
by admin
TEXTILES are everywhere: you can see, touch and feel them, you can also make them do things. But there’s a lot that goes into these textiles coming to life: from visualizing to materializing, thinking to rethinking, discovery to rediscovery, each step is crucial and ongoing until the result is achieved. And what’s also crucial is for the textile artist or the researcher to have access to a setting that’s conducive to innovation, where ideas can flow. Through our “Makers Space Profile” series, we focus on such settings where artists, technologists, designers, and researchers are creating textiles. This time we are featuring Lottozero/ Textile Laboratories in Prato, Italy. We reached out to the Lab Manager Federica Valli to find out all about this fabulous space!
THE THOUGHT….
Lottozero is an international center for textile design, art and culture and its primary goals are to encourage the development of emerging talent through creative residencies and collaborations with established realities, and to revitalize one of the leading textile districts in Europe, Prato.
It operates both as a creative hub and as a consultancy studio: The work done in the CREATIVE HUB is aimed primarily at people operating in textiles and fashion, it responds to a need for space, comparison with other creators and access to information not available online. Feedback, tutorship and the possibility to work and exhibit in this environment is provided. The development of emerging talents and brands is supported through scouting and residencies in the Lottozero headquarters and by facilitating the exchange and collaboration with the traditional companies of the Prato textile district.
The work done by the CONSULTANCY STUDIO is aimed at designers, artists, brands and institutions, providing personalized services to anyone operating in the world of textiles, textile art and fashion. The extensive knowledge of Lottozero is complemented by the expertise and production capacity of the historical textile district and by a widespread and reliable network of excellent creative collaborators that have been scouted all over the world. The Lottozero in-house textile laboratories allow for constant experimentation, creation and prototyping of new ideas, in order to continuously design and develop innovative concepts for internal or external use.
THE PLACE…
Our headquarters occupy a warehouse in the Macrolottozero area of Prato, about 1.5 km from the city center and close to most of the productive areas in and around the city. It is a total of 400-sqm and is divided into a gallery/exhibition area, a shared studio space/co-working and an open lab for textile production, experimentation and research. The space is open and accessible to anyone in the area.
Our COWORKING SPACE/SHARED STUDIO is a beautiful open space shared by artists, designers and other creative professionals from all over the world. It’s more than a conventional coworking, our spaces are an open territory, where sharing techniques and knowledge in the textile field is encouraged at an international level, new collaborative ideas come to life every day and individual projects are enabled by using common resources. In our library we have a vast assortment of books, texts and magazines about textile, fashion and design that our coworkers can consult for work and research.
Our EXHIBITION SPACE is where we periodically present the results of research and experiments developed by the artists and designers who work at Lottozero. We give space to artistic positions driven by an original and acute thought and place ourselves as an independent entity inside the standard art system and vessel for a wide range of creative visions.
Our TEXTILE LAB is an open workshop equipped with machines and tools to explore textile materials and develop textile-related projects. Designers, artisans, artists, creative students and interested parties come here to learn, experiment, design prototypes or produce work in limited series. We have a wide range of machines covering manual and industrial techniques, such as:
Spinning: starting from the fibres, you can make your own yarn using the Ashford spinning wheel and drum carder and the innovative Hilo spinning machine.
Weaving: our extensive weaving area includes a small rigid heddle loom and a sample loom with 16 shafts, mainly for beginners and to try out, a large counter-march loom with 8 shafts, a tapestry loom as well as various craft tools for preparing the warp and of course our current favourite: the 3-Wide TC2 loom!
Knitting: We offer different types of mechanical knitting machines to choose from depending on what you want to knit, three different Brother machines (KH-860, KH-480, KR-830) that also work with patterned punch cards to produce jacquard knits, a Pfaff Duomatic 80 and an old Coppo knitting machine.
Dyeing: A fully equipped dyeing station with double sink, electric plates, steamer (to fix the colors of the textiles) and washing machine is available.
Screen printing: Experiment with the traditional technique of screen printing on textiles using a professional repeat printing table. We provide you with screens in various sizes, different colors, squeegees and a cleaning station with a high-pressure cleaner. The laboratory is equipped with a light box for the exposure of small screens, the exposure of large screens can be done externally. You can print on different types of materials, both directly on garments and on several meters of fabric.
Sublimation printing: If you draw your design or image on paper using special inks, you can print it directly onto the textile using a heat press. The prints will be durable and vibrant.
We have a professional heat press (Siser TS-ONE) with which you can also apply transferable prints and foils to any fabric in a simple and reliable way. The cutting Plotter we have enables you to print and cut your designs in a quick and precise way.
Sewing: we offer 3 types of sewing machines, Juki industrial machines that can sew almost all types of fabrics, including thin leather, domestic machines and overlock machines. We also have a pleating machine that can assemble fabrics for smocking, pleating, shibori and other applications.
Tufting: the lab has two different hand tufting guns (cut pile and loop pile) and tufting frames in two sizes.
Embroidery: with our digital embroidery machine (Tajima Sai) you can convert shapes, lines and colors into stitches and easily realize your personal embroidery based on your own design, a photo or other inspiration.
The Lottozero staff regularly offer introductory workshops and courses for different public and users.
Receiving the phenomenal new TC2 digital jacquard loom motivated us to develop a complete cultural eight months program centered ON WEAVING, including open to the public workshops, exhibitions, residencies and artist talks.
Link to the ON WEAVING Program : Here
The LOTTOZERO RESIDENCE is the perfect place for fashion and textile designers coming to the industrial city of Prato. It includes the stay in our fully-equipped private apartment and the possibility to work inside the Lottozero / textile laboratories headquarters. We are located in the heart of the textile district. If you want to take your production a step forward, you can easily access all the textile companies and manufacturers of the area and start a proficient dialogue.
THE PEOPLE
Lottozero is a female-founded, female-run and female-supporting company. The team now consists of 6 people:
Arianna Moroder: Co-Founder and Textile Designer
Tessa Moroder: Co-Founder and CEO
Alessandra Tempesti: Curator
Elena Ianeselli: Director of Fashion Design and Sustainability
Federica Valli: Lab Manager
Rosa Sonntag: Team Assistant
The team’s different background allows Lottozero to have deep knowledge in every field it navigates. Most of the team also teaches regularly in universities such as Polimoda, IED, NABA, Accademia Italiana and HBK Saar.
THE PROJECTS
Domestika: In July 2024 our very own Domestika course went on-line! LINK
We are so happy to be able to bring to you a class about a topic so dear to us: HERITAGE Design! aka exploring creative methods to use archival materials as starting point for your new personal projects in textile and fashion design, but also art and much, much more. We will assist the students in building a personal source book and get inspired together! Come with us on a journey to discover style, history and creativity with great passion for our textile heritage!
Textile Culture Net
Textile Culture Net (TCN) is a global collaboration between four textile institutions: Central Museum of Textiles (Łódź), Lottozero (Prato), TextielMuseum (Tilburg), and CHAT (Hong Kong). Formed in 2020 during the pandemic, TCN aims to innovate curatorial practices and engage diverse audiences through online exhibitions on Instagram under #TextileCultureNet. Now, TCN is transitioning its digital content into a book, featuring contributions from 18 curators and 100+ artists, documenting exhibitions and serving as an archive for textile art research. The book will be launched on the 12th of September 2024, during a public event at Lottozero, and would be purchasable through our online store.
TC2 open for rent:
We’re excited to share that our 3-Wide TC2 loom is all set up and ready to be rented by anyone who wishes to use it! Our first guest was the brilliant textile designer Bérénice Courtin, who came and wove her latest piece “NaturaaCulturea” which combines new technologies and handicrafts to retell the story of the Mokosh, a Slavic weaving myth.
Recommended Posts
Weaving Workshop Weekend 2024 at LMRM Chicago
October 15, 2024
WEAVING WORKSHOP WEEKEND 2024 at LMRM, Chicago
September 12, 2024
