Haesol Kim

Haesol Kim is a textile designer who focuses on how her use of colour and design work can have a positive psychological effect on people who encounter it. She wants to find a balance between abstract concepts and emotional impulses through interaction with everyday materials. Working to express her own happy memories, experiences, and emotions through colour, form, and material exploration. She aims to tell a playful story with textile work that provides audiences with a synaesthetic experience.

Haesol’s MA in Mixed Media Textiles, Royal College of Art investigates how interactive textiles, and an attitude of playfulness can build a positive emotional experience for her audience.

For modern people who feel emotionally insecure and lonely, my work, inspired by visions of childhood means pranks and fun and makes people feel happy through joy and pleasure. The “play” comes from the playful acts in my own childhood experience. My designs allow people to experience and play actively outside of reality and provide an environment where they can freely see, feel, and play like children. The play I choose to explore is the language of inner purity itself through the nostalgia of the past.

Researching imagery of funfairs and childhood toys I developed stitched surfaces and objects which I then developed into mark making drawings. I also used symbolic icons and sentimental materials from childhood as motifs for the thematic aspects of the work. I transformed the patterns through drawing, printing, and 3D motion design; I developed patterns with rhythm and movement in response to my sensory experience of colour and form. Abstract rhythmic patterns form the basis of my work.

My aim is to inspire a childlike feeling in the audience, to create a playful environment where they are encouraged to interact with the work. The ‘easy’ and ‘fun’ characteristics of my work mean immediate enjoyment of play. My work can be used as a textile prop it can be held or hugged. I hope my design will be a moment of pleasure in people’s daily lives.