It is with great pleasure that we present a collection of research stories from the Beyond e-Textiles project. This project was first and foremost crafted to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, e.g., material science, engineering, design, and fine arts throughout Nordic countries around a defined subject area - the development of novel responsive yarns, textile craftsmanship and design methods. This book collects snapshots from the joint explorations of the partners, Aalto University, University of Borås, University of Turku, Iceland University of the Arts and VIA University College, on this vast domain. These case studies were guided by collaborative biannual workshops, which deepened our understanding of each other’s disciplinary expertise and aimed to refine the concrete research tasks of our open-ended inquiries. With this publication, we document different ways of working together, showing creative ways of finding trust and courage to conduct projects that often crossed many different knowledge domains and sometimes seemingly contradictory aims. It is our hope and concern that our experiences will contribute to and inspire future interdisciplinary research. After all, holistic, multi-sectoral knowledge is needed to drive radical systemic changes, essential in fostering the transition to more sustainable societies and ways of living. Compared to conventional textile design methodswhere material qualities and form composition define the final expression, this research positions designers and scientists as enablers of material relations. The research artifacts, therefore, exhibit multiple expressive states and transforma-tive forms determined by use and sensitivity to natural phenomena. Even though we often intentionally didn’t target production or application, the research findings and created prototypes provide new openings for paths that would warrant a research project of their own. The research findings include healthcare applications, new aesthetic norms of use and wear, and ideas for interior textiles that can alter their shape and function, relying on energy harvested from their immediate environment. Together with the published articles and numerous exhibitions, both physical and digital, this collection of cases represents the project’s legacy. The presented works showcase the formation of deep interdisciplinary links between participating researchers and mixing methodologies typical for the diverse participating domains. We see the case book as a rich material library and as a foundation for cross-disciplinary training where design and science meet to generate more sustainable material practices together, based on a better understanding of natural phenomena as agents for change. Moreover, a meaningful learning was that textile craftsmanship, such as weaving, knitting, bobbin lace, dyeing and printing, was a crucial factor to fully understand the character and potential of different light stimuli, ranging from UV to near-IR, as well as temperature as change agents on textiles. Other learnings, too numerous and occasionally too personal to list here, will hopefully reveal themselves to you while reading.NordForsk enabled this research through the funding to the Nordic network on smart light-conversion textiles beyond electronic circuits, 2021-2025, project ID: 103894. The work will continue with NorTex, 2025-2026, which allows us to further explore the journey towards a Nordic Center of Future Textiles, project ID: 202996. For this support, we are truly grateful.

Happy reading, on behalf of the Beyond e-Textiles research team, Jaana Vapaavuori, Anne Louise Bang, Delia Dumitrescu, Ragna Bjarnadóttir and Kati Miettunen

The samples explore the design possibilities of solar-responsive yarns (light-emitting, color-changing, and shape-changing yarns) in textile design using knitting and weaving constructions. The textiles developed in the project Rhythms of Sunlight connect to the rhythms of nature; they form a visual representation relating acts of use to different climate conditions by being sensitive to continuous changes of light. In this process, natural phenomena are included as co-designers, allowing each piece to exhibit multiple expressions and gently completing the process the designer has opened. Beyond the textile design, the collection of artifacts generates new questions and speculates different ways of daily living with light-responsive textiles.

Inspired by nature's capacity for change, the project proposes an alternative approach to designing smart materials with shape-changing properties powered by green energy. Natural phenomena, e.g., light, are explored to trigger changes in textiles rather than using electrical circuits and energy, which are often used in smart textile design. The project relates material science to textile design through an experimental research methodology to generate responsive materiality, bridging developments in material science, textile craftsmanship, artistic research, and design.

Nowadays, ethics and care for the environment have shifted paradigms in smart textile design towards responsible energy use and preservation of natural resources. In this research, we aim to relate material science and engineering to textile and interaction design in discovering a vibrant responsive materiality triggered by ultraviolet (UV) energy. The research addresses a bottom-up approach entangling scientific development in material science, textile craftsmanship, and design to the understanding of human use and the capacities for change of this natural phenomena. Compared to a conventional textile design process where material and form composition connect in a final expression, this research positions designers and scientists as enablers of material relations. The artefacts, therefore, exhibit multiple states and forms, transforming dynamically through use and sensitivity to natural phenomena. The selected textile artefacts are seen as relational; they open for different conversations and materialize entanglements of materials, techniques, methods, and research methodologies that relate experimental research to human-centered and more-than-human approaches.

In the Beyond e-Textiles project material research is combined with design explorations looking at the possibilities of solar radiation as a source to initiate change in textiles. Solar radiation of visible light and, to humans’ eyes, non-visible ultraviolet (UV) radiation, can trigger visual and structural changes in textiles. One question is how we can perceive solar radiation through textile objects, leading to the question if another perception can make us more aware of the not man-made parts of the world. 

This research project explored solar energies beyond their traditional role as a mere power source, examining their capacity as agential materials (Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2020) within smart textile design. It emphasized the active participation of solar energies—encompassing visible light, ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, and infrared wavelengths—in shaping both the material properties and interactive behaviours of textiles. These energies are framed as co-constituents in the dynamic interaction between natural and designed environments, influenced by a “more-than-human design” theoretical framework (Barzdzell et al. 2021; Giaccardi et al. 2025; Wakkary 2021).

With this exhibition presentation at the BICCS Conference 2025, we wish to discuss the role of textile crafting in the research project Nordic Network on Smart Light-Conversion Textiles Beyond Electric Circuits, 2021-2025 emphasizing the importance of textile crafting in a cross-disciplinary partner consortium focusing on materials development. We argue that textile crafting may serve as an entrance point to equal dialogue across highly different research fields and thereby pave the way for ethical and sustainable considerations for the benefit of the environment and the way we act as human species in a planetary context. The research addresses the following themes: 1) UV energy as agent for shape change, 2) UV energy as agent for slow colour change, and 3) UV energy as agent for immediate colour change. At the exhibition we display artefacts applying textile craft techniques such as bobbin lace,multi-layered weavings, knitted, printed and dyed textiles.

In the presented collection of artefacts, textiles are seen as active elements in their environments – being able to react to environmental stimuli by changing their shape, colour, or other qualities. Drawing parallelism to biological materials, some of these changes are two-directional and thus can lead to reversible changes, whereas some are linear and irreversible, such as ageing. As examples of two-directional changes, textile designs based on UV reactive properties: colour changing, light emitting, and self-cleaning, as well as textile constructions based on newly developed yarns capable of reversible shape changes upon exposure to heat are exhibited. On the other hand, the colour changes of natural dyes dictated by the ambient environment and the heat-response of new PLA yarns bring about elements of irreversible change. When two-directional and linear changes coexist, the appearance (and thus aesthetics) of the artefacts is constantly altering. The timescales contained in these textile transformations vary significantly creating an interesting interplay of diverse and sometimes intersecting qualities. These concepts are approached from different viewpoints – from developing new advanced materials for making yarns, exploring different textile crafting methods for producing diverse textile structures, and to engaging with aesthetic sustainability. 

This exhibition shows work in progress in the Beyond e-textiles project which bases on interdisciplinary research work involving contributions from physics, crafting, materials engineering, and textile design. Partners are Aalto University, University of Turku, University of Borås, VIA University College, and Iceland University of the Arts. Employing methodologies from these various disciplines and conducting research at different levels of hierarchy of textile construction can help us to reimagine, materialise and finally realise new textile concepts and their changing aesthetics

The way we construct our immediate surroundings and our ways of living determine how we relate to the whole world as we know it and how we view our lives in relation to it. In other words, our perspective of the wider world and our role within it is shaped by how the things we use are designed and depends on the ways in which we are permitted to interact with our world through these things. This is the focus of this work, which suggests three interaction design principles to support the process of forming and strengthening the relation between us and the basic conditions of life. These principles are based on the observations made and experiences had during three field trips in areas of wilderness in northern Scandinavia that examined how interactions with essential resources such as water and heat affected the relations of people to these resources. Accordingly, the proposed design principles concern the relational aspect of design in terms of how the actions carried out affect these relations, rather than how the quantities of resources used can be communicated to people through a design or how an interaction will be experienced or engage people. The principles bring up design aspects such as relatedness, value and adaptability.

In the collection of artefacts presented in this exhibition, textiles are seen as active elements in their environments – being able to react to environmental stimuli by changing their shape, colour or other qualities, exhibiting behaviours similar to e-textiles but without using electricity. Drawing parallelism to biological materials, some of these changes are two-directional and thus can lead to reversible changes, whereas some are linear and irreversible, such as ageing. As examples of two-directional changes, textile designs based on UV reactive properties: colour changing, light emitting, and self-cleaning, as well as textile constructions based on newly developed yarns capable of reversible shape changes upon exposure to heat, are exhibited. On the other hand, the colour changes of natural dyes dictated by the ambient environment and the response of new PLA yarns bring about elements of irreversible change. When two-directional and linear changes coexist, the appearance (and thus aesthetics) of the artefacts is constantly altering. The timescales contained in these textile transformations vary significantly, creating an interesting interplay of diverse and sometimes intersecting qualities. These concepts are approached from different levels of study – from developing new advanced materials for making yarns to exploring different textile crafting methods for producing diverse textile structures, construction and aesthetics, as well as moving towards shape-morphing 3D textiles, where exposure and disappearance of different properties as a function of changing textile shape can occur.