For the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, former student Anastasia Starostenko designed a curtain in the TextielLab for one of the spaces in the new academy building.
The new, third building on the Gerrit Rietveld Academy’s campus was designed by former students and consists of three layers, including a basement and roof terrace. The interior was also designed by former students. For the ‘theory stairs’, Starostenko was inspired by the building’s open structure to design a curtain that allows people inside to peer outwards and those outside to look in. It also aims to enhance collaboration and exchange between students and teachers from different departments – goals that are central to the building itself.
Colour and quality were important elements of this project: the end result had to fall as smoothly as silk. Specially for this commission, the warp was dyed a different colour.
Starostenko (Russia, 1984) is an Amsterdam-based textile artist. She studied art history and textile art, graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2015 with a project dedicated to reviving and re-establishing the role of traditional textile techniques in today’s society.
