Lauren Chang is a textile designer, maker, and specialist. Interstitial Spaces is where she investigates the way textiles can reconnect us to the natural world and each other. Lauren engages with fibers and textiles to explore the relationship between the natural and manufactured worlds. Her method favors scientific processes, a global perspective, connection to the land, and equal respect for the long arc of time and developing technology.
Her journey started 20 years ago as a textile conservator. Conservation requires the in-depth study of the history, materials, and techniques of textile traditions and the analytical and hand-skills to identify, describe, and repair them. Through this intimate relationship—documenting materials, techniques, wear, staining, repair campaigns, she created frameworks for the lives of the textiles and those who lived with them. Now she exists in the interstices between what shapes the physical world and being shaped by the physical world.
After a successful 13-year career in conservation, Lauren shifted to creating yarns and textiles by hand and sharing her expertise. Rather than mitigating change; her practice demands coexistence with constant change. Lauren works deliberately, mindful of the impact of any making practice on people and the natural world.
Lauren has been featured on the podcast Circular with Katie Treggiden and in the publications Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom, the Northern California Fibershed Producer Newsletter, and Spin Off magazine. In 2022 she was invited and served as a judge for sustainability categories of Dezeen Awards 2022. She has worked as a conservator at the Art Institute of Chicago and earned fellowships in conservation at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has published and presented widely on textiles, conservation, and textile science.
Email lkchang27@gmail.com for inquiries for works, writing, and consultations.
Banner image by and courtesy of Yeshen Venema.
