Kedut Light

Our solution to the ceramic and textile brief of Syntropy was the Kedut light. We designed this series of light fixtures to both incorporate both Malaysian songket textile and ceramic ware, and to highlight the beauty of the traditional songket that we had become so fond of. We were aware of the small timeframe we had to produce a product to fit this brief and while many ideas of jewellery and wall art were being thought of, a practical realistic project for the time given was the lighting option. The shape and incorporations in our design, however could be applied to other field of design other than just lighting. 

Our light illuminated the songket from the inside, showing off the small intricate details of the weaving. The ‘crumpled’ looking songket also provides an interactive component to our design. This component is aimed at stimulating people to touch and feel the light, move it and crumple it how they like. This allows all individuals to get up close to the songket and really see the amount of effort that went into weaving the fabric. 

lighting concept

Originally we had planned to use sheer fabric with copper wire woven through it to make it rigid enough to crumple and bend. As we experimented with the qualities of both sheer and normal songket, we found that interfacing the fabric was also successful. Thanks to Aliff, we were able to iron interfacing onto the back of the fabric and steam press the creases we desired into the songket. Each of techniques were successful and we presented both in conjunction with ceramic fittings as a series of lighting fixtures. 

Kedut Prototype

The ceramic fixture was slip cast from water bottles that everyone had been drinking from while in Alamanda (not sure why they didn’t drink the tap water). We were on a very tight schedule and thanks to Ion and Larissa patience we were able to make the molds, cast and fire 2 of the fittings, one of which was successful. Ion also made two fittings, which he then carved into the geometric pattern we desired. Both the cast and thrown fittings were successful and we decided to present both options for final presentation. 

Kedut Prototype 2

Our group worked extremely productively and everyone had a clear direction within the group. Ion’s skills in the ceramics and graphics department were brilliant. His meticulous skill with ceramics really payed off for the final product. Larissa and Aliff worked extremely hard on the fabric side of things. Aliff was the master sewer for all our swatches and helped a great deal with his knowledge of the qualities of certain fabrics. June’s knowledge of fabric also came in handy when she suggested to Blake to use the steam press to create the permanent pleats. Everyone worked well and the tasks were split fairly among all and we were all extremely grateful to be able have worked with one another. 

Team Members : Ion, Aliff, Larissa, Blake,

Blog Post by Blake.