This is a page showing research, various media and collaborations.
Aliki’s fascination with the weather started when she inherited twelve calendars from her grandfather. On each calendar, he had meticulously described the weather on every single day of that calendar year, creating a detailed collection of weather data that covered twelve years.
With the prevalent rains in the Netherlands and its history of struggling with the elements, and with clouds very present in the landscape rain is deeply rooted in Dutch culture. Researching the weather herself, she noticed that since the 1950’s rainfall has increased by about 4% due to climate change. But the only way to display this change is by weather charts, satellite images and graphs. The rainfall itself is an immaterial event that cannot be archived, only remembered.
With her background in fashion and material development, Aliki asked herself what it would be like to capture the experience of rain on textile, making it possible to wear the weather. So, after her grandfather’s example, she started to map the atmosphere. But where he wrote his weather data down, she made hers visual.
Over time she developed her own printing technique she calls ‘pluviagraphy’. Using a film coating that is sensitive to water, it becomes possible to create a visual recording of rainfall on a filmed piece of textile. Whether it’s a soft drizzle or a tropical downpour, the type of rain creates a unique print.
As of today, Made by Rain is an ongoing project – a growing collection of weather imprinted on textile from different times and locations around the world.
Each Made by Rain textile comes with a handmade notation of the location, date, time interval, millimeters of rain, and weather circumstances under which the pluviagraphy was done. This way, the textiles form a collection of weather data: visual recordings of a specific day in history.
The self-published book ‘Made by Rain’ is a record of process, inspiration and research to results of the project. This thesis book was part of the master graduation of the Dirty Art Department on the Sandberg Insituut in Amsterdam. Graphic design in collaboration with Lena Steinborn. Click here to browse the book.
Through various collaborations imprints of Made by Rain found place into the domestic landscape. Below a cape treated with beeswax, part of the F/W 2014 collection of Studio Elsien Gringhuis and a duvet cover on commission for Zig Zag Zurich.
A porcelain collection follows up the textile collection and was developed during a three-month creative residency from september-november 2017 in Arita, Japan.
In a collaboration with the potter Fukusengama, Aliki came to a process to ‘draw’ on porcelain with the rain. They investigated how to achieve a contemporary approach to traditional Arita ware and create a modest patterning on the porcelain by using real rain together with several experimental stages of glazing.
They found a productive and stable way to imprint and fix the desired rain patterns. The Japanese rain is imprinted on the icon plate from Fukusengama with a diameter of 32 cm and receives, just like the scarfs, the notation of the location, time and weather circumstances of exposure to the weather.
The project Made by Rain has been exhibited in galleries, museums and design fairs in Amsterdam, Beijing, Milan, New York, Rotterdam, Shanghai, Tokyo, Osaka and more upcoming shows are planned.
Scarfs Made by Rain are for purchase on this website through the shop below left, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York City (U.S.). Both the scarfs and textiles are part of the t.e collection of Thomas Eyck (NL).
