Vivien Carolyn Reinert

Screen printed final neoprene fabric samples based on the collected comfort and discomfort colours, textures and shapes of friends, family and myself. The information for these pieces were gathered through informal interviews with different individuals.

With all of my pieces I attempted to create maps of a person that my audience could "read" and that would tell them about another person's comfort and discomfort. That is why none of the pieces are rectangular but rather odd shaped. Because humans are not square.

These illustrations as well as collages are based on a collection of objects of comfort and discomfort that were given to me by relationships: family members, friends and acquaintances. My practice is about documenting and mapping the outside environment. During the second lockdown my immediate surroundings, my home, as well as the homes of the people I communicated with, became my new source of inspiration. I asked them to send me pictures of objects in their home that, for whatever reason (colour, texture or emotional association), represent comfort and discomfort for them.

Creating these illustrations and collages was a way for me to generate design developments that contained the different elements of an individuals comfort and discomfort whilst still being ambiguous and open for interpretation.

For every comfort and discomfort I created several versions for the different individuals. They would then chose their favourite and the chosen design was then taken into the next stage of the design development process. This was done to keep the exchange and collaboration between them and me going.

For all designs I decided to combine the uncomfortable and comfortable colours in one piece. That is because my aim was to merge the two together. I wanted to create pieces that contain the whole person, whilst at the same time working with the idea that ones discomfort could be the comfort of someone else looking at the final piece.