Joanna Pierce
Title
Pathway Leader Print
College
Central Saint Martins
Email address
Tags
Researcher Research
Biography
Jo Pierce is Senior Lecturer and Print Pathway Leader on the BA (Hons) Textile Design Course at Central Saint Martins, which she has done since 2007. She is a member of the Textiles Future Research Centre at Central Saint Martins.Jo’s design practice focuses on the boundaries between hand and digital design techniques for printed textiles, designed through the exploration of both traditional print process and digital production technologies. Due to he rise of global local and the evolution of home technology, the last decade has seen phenomenal advancement into home printing capabilities allowing the rise of DIY production for textile printing. This combined with the rising craft revolution means more and more people are crafting and making for themselves. This relationship between craft and digital is a focus for Jo's research and 'handmade digital' a driving aesthetic to explore in her textiles.
Research is concerned with the notion of design and participation; user centered making to foster more connectivity and attachment through personal experience. Its interest is based in opening up the process of design for the end user as a form of increasing a sense of wellbeing and inclusivity. Democratizing of the design process, Jo’s re-surface wallpapers and patterns encouraged the user to ‘join in’ creating pattern and image to complete the design. This process of allowing the user to design aims to generate greater connectedness with a product and the process of making and participation to increase longevity and life cycle of consumer products.
Through teaching and course based practice Jo is constantly building up a database of materials and resources available for today’s textile printer, expanding the knowledge of both hard and soft print substrates, print pastes and print materials to push the potential of textile print for future production.
Most recently, Jo has co-founded ‘The Houndstooth Project’ with colleague and fellow researcher Philippa Brock. Pierce and Brock have set up a research methods atelier to explore the potential of textile design process. The research design practice is to develop process led research methods, through initiating, working on, facilitating and documenting cross-disciplinary, collaborative, socially innovated, inclusive textile based projects; to work with industry and community and education groups.