Louise Webber (She/Her)
Glasgow-based designer, with a keen interest in identity and how it can be
conveyed emotionally and physically through culture and society.
My work this year has been focused on female inheritance of trauma, how myth and folklore can be both informant and informer. Mythology has in every culture, been a means of creating and maintaining sociological expectations. In popularised Classical myth, women became objectified, degraded, ostracised, sexualised, and vilified, all under the justifications of the embellishment of their actions and motives.
My focus is to recontextualise femininity, considering how it is explored within Celtic cultural belief and mythology; which is observably viewed with a lot more respect and understanding. Celtic stories feature women who are diverse and empowering, who often relay the same wildness and spirituality observed in nature. Women are not vilified and ostracised for not living up to the standards set by male centric values.
My practice involves the manipulation of fabric through use of smocking, appliqué, ruche and embroidery, among other processes and coatings. My approach has been to focus on the exploration of texture and form relating to the wild natural aspects that these myths relay.