Sculptural Knit Fabric: HyunJin Yun talented Korean knitwear designer I. part

Knitted design from Auckland/New Zealand: HyunJin Yun talented Korean knitwear designer student / AUT - I. part

She is an ingenious Korean knitwear designer student who is doing now her last year - MA degree - at Auckland University of Technology.

Photos from 2011 project

I met her last mounth at " Stretching the limits in knit research" Symposium, which was organized by the AUT - Auckland University of Technology. Next to other interesting and exciting design presentation, I found HjunJin's works really special and captivating.
She is not a simple knitwear designer because she is focusing more on e-knitting design in home design. Through her works she bring us in exciting visual spectacle world so we should keep track of her work in the future too.

 HyunJin Yun

Let’s cast our minds back to where it all began for you.

Tell some details what you think is important to know about yourself to the Blog readers.

Why became you a designer and special a knitwear designer? How it started?

I’ve been fascinated with fabrics since childhood; growing silkworms on mulberry trees, drawing on paper dolls, I even remember making a dress out of a spare sock for my friend’s doll.

When I grew up I worked in the Korean textile industry - which was very hard work, very long hours, and then moved to New Zealand in 2004. I decided to study textile design to get an in-depth knowledge of textiles. 

Tell us a little bit about your study: How is the life at AUT? - teachers, expectations, workshops, etc., which comes to your mind.

I often feel very lucky that I have a lot of people guiding my studying and this makes learning much more enjoyable and faster. Working with new materials and always trying to learn new methods, I often feel bewildered - where’s this all going? Having good supervisors, lecturers’ knowledge and helpful classmates really helps me find areas to specialise in and identify goals to work towards. 

The AUT facilities are very good for practice as well as gaining knowledge. We have specialty knitting machines, fabric digital printing, 3D lab and the Textile Design Lab. I can access these facilities and develop my own project ideas and all the lab technicians and department engineers are always helpful.

"Sculptural Knit Fabric Lit with Electroluminescent Wire"

"Sculptural Knit Fabric Lit with Electroluminescent Wire"
The shapes of these sculptures were inspired by New Zealand native fern trees. They are knitted on a Shima Seiki whole garment knitting machine in the Textile Design Lab at AUT. These three dimensional knitted fabric are 60 cm wide and 6 meters long."

"Sculptural Knit Fabric Lit with Electroluminescent Wire"

Last week(11th April) AUT hosted a machine knitting forum in the Auckland Art Gallery, and at the last moment I learnt I couldn’t hang my fabric sculptures from the ceiling. So in two days I had to find a “professional looking” solution. I ended up in the metalwork department of AUT where I had never been to before, getting a helpful engineer to bend copper pipes to make a lamp post! That available help and flexibility can turn a stressful challenge into a rewarding event.

To be continued...