Higher Seminars
The Higher Seminars consist of lectures around the field of design. Some of the lectures are given by researchers and designers close to home. Others are external to present different methods, know-how, and insight into discussions across a wide range of issues facing the industry, from sustainable design and supply chains to opportunities and developments in technology.
The Higher Seminars primarily target The Swedish School of Textiles' PhD, MA and BA students of fashion and textile design. However, the seminars are also open and available to all, meaning that anyone can come and listen.
Moderator and organiser: Saina Koohnavard, fashion design lecturer at the Department of Design, The Swedish School of Textiles.
Below is the schedule for upcoming seminars.
Welcome!
Location and time
When: Tuesdays, even-numbered weeks, at 13:00-14:30
Where: Zoom/Campus
Autumn 2024
The seminars of the autumn semester take place on Zoom or campus. More information can be found under each seminar.
1 October - Caroline Connor, Material Guidance
Lecture title: You Came Here to Become a Designer but You Will Become...
A career is never straight, it is a journey where you will be guided in many directions, both voluntarily and unwillingly. Cherish your studies at THS to prepare for your travels ahead.
Let me guide you through my routes from Glasgow to Sweden and 24 years of discovering that I am much more than a designer….
Educated with an MA in Textile Design from Royal College of Art, London, Caroline has worked as a consultant in CMF design and product development roles predominantly in the automotive industry. Today she offers consultancy services within Ecodesign and ESG topics as founder and owner of material Guidance Sweden AB.
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Vestindien A
15 October - Roei Derhi, Placebo
Fashion lovers are increasingly embracing digital fashion—clothing and accessories that exist only in virtual spaces like social media and gaming platforms. But why is digital fashion so important, and how will it transform the industry? In this lecture, we’ll explore key innovations like Web3, phygital fashion, blockchain, and extended reality (XR). You'll learn how these technologies are creating new possibilities for sustainable, inclusive fashion and reshaping the future of design, craftsmanship, and the consumer experience.
Roei Derhi is a fashion designer and 3D artist who incorporates technology into his creations. After his graduation show at the Shenkar College fashion department, H&M recruited Derhi and relocated him to Sweden to join their design team. In 2021, Derhi established the innovative and futuristic fashion brand, PLACEBO, collaborating with celebrities and big fashion companies such as three ASFOUR and Beyonce. He merges low-tech and high-tech, past with future, and physical with digital in his creations. Derhi has built a reputation as a unique Fashion-Tech specialist, speaking at conferences, and events, and lecturing at Shenkar's fashion department and Think Tank Canada.
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Zoom
29 October - Lena Berglin
Lecture title: A Diffractive Practice – Vagueness as a Resource in Scientific Research and Art
In systematic scientific material studies, vagueness is generally discouraged. The word "vague" comes from the Latin “vaccus”, meaning vacant, empty, or unoccupied. In German, “woge” refers to a sea swell, evoking the ideas of movement, oscillation, instability, and fluctuation. However, vagueness can also be understood as something free, available, and performative. In 2012, I began incorporating vagueness into both my research and creative practices in collaboration with artist Kajsa G. Eriksson. Now, a decade later, I am drawn to explore how the concept of vagueness has shaped my work, blurring the lines between creative and scientific material exploration.
Lena Berglin is a researcher and designer at the Department of Textile Technology at The Swedish School of Textiles. Alongside her research, Berglin co-manages the artistic studio Vague Research Studios with Visual Artist Ph.D. Kajsa G. Eriksson and Graphic designer Milena Karlsson. Her scientific research focuses primarily on the movement of liquids and moisture within textile structures. This knowledge has applications in fields such as healthcare products and functional clothing, while also offering visually intriguing experiences involving textile fibers, yarns, and structures. Recently, Berglin completed the art project "Technology as Ritual" in collaboration with artist Kajsa G. Eriksson and video artist Maria Magnusson.
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Vestindien A
12 November - Otto von Busch
Otto von Busch is Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design and holds a Ph.D. in design from the School of Design and Craft at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has a background in arts, craft, design, and theory and many of his projects and publications explore how making practices, and especially fashion, can mobilize community capabilities through collaborative craft and social activism.
In this seminar, Otto von Busch will address some of the seemingly inherent conflicts in fashion, around waste and sustainability, inclusion and exclusion, difference and sameness, conflict and community
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Zoom
26 November - Stina Behrens, Axfoundation
In this seminar, Stina will introduce The Fiber Traceability Initiative and how this Proof of Concept project is driving change towards full traceability in the fashion industry. Stina will highlight the challenges and opportunities involved in creating transparent value chains, as well as how collaboration with various industry players can support a more sustainable and circular system. We will also touch on the Digital Product Passport and how digital solutions and innovations that strengthen the circular economy and promote more sustainable fashion.
Since 2021, Stina has been working at Axfoundation, a non-profit organization, as a project manager within the Future Materials program, leading projects and initiatives focused on business development and innovation related to circular economy and transparent value chains. She initiated and currently leads The Fiber Traceability Initiative. Stina has a background in sustainable service and business development within both the private and public sectors. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Sciences from Stockholm University and a Bachelor’s degree in Art and Design from Beckmans College of Design.
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Zoom
10 December - Conny Groenewegen
My design process is like a dance with the material, I create conditions to provoke pleasure and quality, but it never lets itself be enforced.
I could not have discovered the things I make if I had outsourced their execution. My process stems from an intrinsic and inseparable connection between form, technique and material. Therefore, I design with the material and close to the technique. The material adapts if I challenge it in the right way and this requires receptivity to its properties and behaviour. I learn this by working with it, observing it, looking for its resistances. Quality is provoked but can never be enforced and, as a designer, I am convinced when the result evokes its own mystery.
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Zoom
Spring 2025
The seminars of the spring semester take place on Zoom or campus. More information can be found under each seminar.
7 January - Christoph Brach, RAW COLOR
Raw Color is an interdisciplinary design studio that considers colour as their core of activity. From there the practice stretches across the fields of Graphic Design, Textile Design, Product Design and Spatial Design. From their Eindhoven based studio they combine self directed project with commissioned projects for national and international clients. Together with their compact team they work for Adidas, Hermès, Ikea, Sancal, Samsung and Textile Museum. Their work has been taken in the permanent collections of Stedelijk Museum and Cooper-Hewitt Museum.
In the lecture, Christoph Brach co-founder of Raw Color and design educator, will show examples of the studio's practice. The presentation will illustrate how colour is the visual connection between diverse projects. It also will showcase how textile thinking and aesthetics can projected on a wide range of projects that are not necessarily executed in textiles.
Time: 12:30 - 14:00
Location: Zoom
21 January - Lucy McRae
Artist Lucy McRae leads a multi-disciplinary art-research studio investigating the impact future technologies have on human evolution. By designing hypothetical worlds that use speculation as a tool, Lucy's work provokes an exploration of who we are, and where we are headed.
In this lecture, Lucy will guide students to incubate a mind state that trusts the unknown, developing methods for pioneering new aesthetics, new stories, and new ways of being together in the world.
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Location: Zoom
4 February - Tanja Vidic
Tanja Vidic is a knitwear designer from Slovenia and a recent SST graduate known for her experimental approach to materials and methods, pushing the boundaries of traditional knitwear. Through mindful cuts, openings, and the sensual reveal of the body, she explores the relationship between knitted textiles, body, and form.
Tanja’s designs have gained international recognition, with her pieces featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, as well as through her recent collaborations with designer Rick Owens for his Spring/Summer 2025 collections, showcased at Paris Fashion Week.
In this seminar, Tanja will talk about her curiosity for knits and materials, her creative process of designing and rethinking conventional knitwear, her BA thesis, her recent collaborations with Rick Owens, and her ongoing design journey.
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Zoom
18 February - Vidmina Stasiulyte
Vidmina Stasiulyte is a researcher, senior lecturer, and artist whose work merges the fields of experimental aesthetics, sonic expression, and social inclusion. She received her Ph.D. from The Swedish School of Textiles, where she continues working as a senior lecturer and leading researcher of the project Sonic Fashion granted by The Swedish Research Council. Vidmina's research takes a radical approach to fashion by bringing the non-visual, temporal expression—sound; it critiques the defining and designing practices by suggesting ways to include marginalized and differently-abled bodies toward a more inclusive and democratic fashion. You are all invited to participate in the interactive and experience-based design seminar where Vidmina will present her research on Sonic Fashion, and you will be encouraged to interact with sonic artifacts and immerse yourself in the practices of sound embodiment. A WARM WELCOME! Let's dive into a temporal, experiential sonic dimension together!
Note: Please bring a shawl or a piece of fabric for blind folding yourself during the seminar.
You are kindly suggested to read and listen to Vidmina's interactive article at VIS journal before our seminar (note: the content of the article is on the top of the left corner).
More information about Vidmina's research can be found on her vidmina.net.
Time: 10:30 - 12:00
Location: Vestindien A
25 February - Shoplifter/Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir
Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter is a NY based Icelandic contemporary artist. She is best known for her work made with synthetic and natural hair, most recently encapsulated within hand blown glass objects. Her sculptures, wall murals and site-specific installations explore themes of vanity, beauty and pop culture with colorful visual stimulation and references to exaggerated organic formation or “hypernature”. Shoplifter represented Iceland at the 58th La Biennale di Venezia in Italy in 2019 with Chromo Sapiens, a multi sensory large scale installation that is currently on permanent display at Höfuðstöðin in Reykjavik, a culture center founded by the artist in 2022.
The large scale multi sensory installation, Chromo Sapiens later opened at the Reykjavik Art Museum in January 2020. Her most recent work is made with hand blown glass and in 2022 she was an Artist in Residence at Pilchuck Glass School in WA, USA.
Pilchuck School of Glass invited Shoplifter for Artist in Residence in 2022 that started her on the path to working on a new body of glass artwork combining organic glass shapes and fibers to make otherworldly curiosities. Most recently her glass work was exhibited at The Armory Art Fair 2024 in a solo presentation with the New York based gallery New Discretions.
Other recent work includes solo exhibitions at Kai Art Center, Tallinn, Estonia (2023), ARoS Art Museum, Aarhus, Denmark (2021), Nordatlantens Brygge, Copenhagen, Denmar (2021), Á Kleifum, Hrútey, Iceland (2021), Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm, Sweden (2020), The Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia (2020), Kiasma, the Finnish National Gallery (2019), the National Gallery of Iceland (2017), the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2017) and the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art in Australia (2016). Notable projects and awards include her large window installation created in collaboration with art collective avaf (assume vivid astro focus) for MoMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York (2008), The Nordic Award in Textiles and The Prince Eugen Medal for artistic achievement from the King and Royal Crown of Sweden (2011). Shoplifter is the co-founder of Höfuðstöðin, a new art center in Reykjavik, Iceland, where her installation Chromo Sapiens is permanently located. Höfuðstöðin also features a café, bar, design shop and an event venue, celebrating human connection through art and creativity
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Textile Museum
18 March - Erik Olofsson Haavikko, Scandinavian Mind
Welcome to this Higher Seminar with that tackles concepts and methods of brand building in the current tech era together with creative director and co-founder of the design platform Scandinavian Mind, Erik Olofsson Haavikko.
As a musician, Erik was more useful in creating concepts and merch than playing instruments. Instead of higher education, he toured the world while simultaneously establishing a career as a freelance graphic designer in the cultural fields.
Once he got to the bottom of typography and layout, he was often disappointed when he couldn’t influence the images—so he turned to art direction. Working in the fashion industry for a few intense years taught him a lot and built a solid network. A failed e-commerce marketplace venture in the early pandemic led him to pivot to tech: co-founding the editorial platform Scandinavian MIND (bridging lifestyle & technology) and taking full responsibility as a creative director, working strategically with the brand while simultaneously consulting on content and storytelling.
Tech clients naturally got him gravitating towards UI/UX design, getting hands-on work done as well as leading teams—fully embracing the design system approach.
Time: 13:00 - 14:30
Location: Zoom