Glithero | 120/7 Rubia Spectrum

Curated by Tord Boontje

Glithero are known for their extensive prototyping work that lays bare and celebrates the beauty of the creative process. Working with Hallingdal 65 this approach meant using vast lengths of the textile as an experimental test strip, studying and showing the beauty of its gradual colouration using a natural colouring pigment called Rubia.

Working with a series of pigment specialists the designers immersed the fabric in a large drum of Rubia, a miraculous organic red dye that is extracted from the root of the Madder plant, before raising it slowly at regular intervals. The resulting gradient colour strip both reveals the passing of time and pays homage to the beauty of a stage of the design process that is usually left behind in the artists workshop. The dip-dying process also introduces a new layer of colour, susceptible to chance and imperfection, that contrasts with the meticulously coloured Hallingdal textile.

Glithero is the Anglo-Dutch partnership of Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren. The pair met and studied at the Royal College of Art.

They are known for their extensive prototyping work, which lays bare and celebrates the beauty of the creative process. Reflecting this, their works, which come in many different forms, share a conceptual backbone: to capture the spirit that exists in the moment things are made.