Wonderland: when chemistry, design and culture collide

Since 2005 scientist Professor Tony Ryan, University of Sheffield, and artist and designer Professor Helen Storey, London College of Fashion, have worked together to create real solutions for a more sustainable world.

Wonderland is a powerful and collaborative project of shared ideas, symbolic of change, it began with a provocative question posed by Helen to scientist Tony Ryan.

The Disappearing Dresses were the result of a process that started when Helen began talking to Tony, a polymer chemist. Using the symbols of the dissolving dress and other works that have arisen as a result of the collaboration, Wonderland shines light on the wider and much greater issues of sustainability and ethical living. A work perhaps vulnerable to cynicism, it demands and suggests intelligent change through brave collaboration and experiment.

The Wonderland exhibition brought together the worlds of art and science. By working together, Ryan and Storey have been able to use their different backgrounds to spark new ideas on the application of science and discover practical solutions to current ethical issues.

The Original tour:
The project developed a number of products, in varying stages of completion. The exhibitions in Sheffield demonstrated two of these:

Dissolving bottles
The dissolving bottles, shown at the city’s Botanical Gardens, are an exploration of intelligent packaging. Once finished with, the bottles dissolve under hot water to form a gel in which seeds can be grown. The concept could revolutionise the packaging industry and aims to highlight issues surrounding waste plastic.

Disappearing dresses
The disappearing dresses, displayed at Meadowhall Shopping Centre, are made from dissolving textiles designed Trish Belford at Interface, at the University of Ulster. The material dissolves in water, creating vibrant underwater fireworks. The dresses will be hung from scaffolds and gradually lowered into giant goldfish bowls of water. The exhibition questions the environmental sustainability of our current fashion industry and what happens to used clothing.

To date three new and potentially globally important concepts have evolved out of the collaboration between Helen Storey and Tony Ryan. These were exhibited as part of the Wonderland exhibition.

In the simplest terms these are:
The disappearing bottle - inspired by Helen's original concept of a plastic bottle that would have an intelligent relationship with its contents.

Water purification products: In the third world the most readily available source of power is human muscle. The water purification products use reverse osmosis and human energy to create clean from contaminated water.

Free Feet: This is a 'second skin' for the underside of the foot; a running shoe with no uppers. It is moulded from a polymer and has adhesive patches at the heel, ball of foot and big-toe. The commercial potential is four-fold (1) medical device for people with sensitive and swollen feet who cannot wear conventional shoes (2) orthopedic device to encourage good posture through effectively walking barefoot (3) foot protection for people who normally do not wear shoes and suffer from skin damage and infection as a result (4) fashion. This product is being developed in collaboration with Terraplana Ltd.

This unique exhibition was first shown in 2008 - 2009 in a showcase of talent, imagination and creativity. It toured from London, to a city-wide event in Sheffield and then to Belfast.

Tony and Helen comment:
"We know that if we continue to live the way we are now, the earth will become uninhabitable. Yet, we still struggle with the enormity of the thought and so, as often as with war, it becomes something reported to us in our everyday lives, staining our hearts whilst frustrating our minds.
Experience shows our enormous potential to think the unimaginable is increased most profoundly in collaboration. We deliberately collided our differently trained minds to specifically address some of the planet's greatest problems - lack of drinking water and non-recyclable plastics. This collision produced a new water purification device and the disappearing plastic bottle amongst other ideas.
We chose dress to manifest our new approach because we wanted to create something beautifully familiar with which to stimulate an emotional connection, particularly here at LCF. To watch a dress, that has taken months to create, disappear in a few days seemed to connect directly to that place of unfathomable loss. We hope this may work as a metaphor for our disappearing world."

Nick Knight and SHOWstudio worked with Helen and Tony to create films and a series of images. http://showstudio.com/project/wonderland/fashion_film

The ‘Disappearing Dresses’ went on to appear at the Royal Academy of Art, London as part of the AWARE exhibition in 2010 and then on to tour Europe as part of the Futurotextiles exhibition between 2010 -12.

A talk by Helen Storey titled, Wonderland and Beyond - Celebrating the Imagination Festival, Rook Lane Chapel Bath Street Frome, Somerset BA11 1DN
25th April 2013
From the Festival website:
Taking place over several weeks in spring 2013, Celebrating the Imagination is a festival of imaginative perspectives on number of issues within contemporary culture. The programme offers an interdisciplinary approach to ideas, bridging the gaps between art and science, between education and environment bringing together great speakers and thinkers from the UK and beyond.
Helen spoke about her ground breaking project ’Primitive Streak‘, which brought together the worlds of science and fashion through the creation of a fashion collection that explained the first 1000 hours of human life. And how in 2005 ‘Wonderland’ was conceived, followed by ‘Catalytic Clothing’, exploring how new materials can make consumer products less damaging to the planet.
http://www.rooklanearts.org.uk/events/celebrating-the-imagination-helen-storey/

Wonderland at 100% Design
This exhibition was also a public workshop within the greater event, 100% Design. Show casing and demonstrating the creation of the disappearing materials produced for
Wonderland.
18 - 21 September 2008
Earls Court London

Wonderland project at Sainsburys
A commissioned Wonderland piece for all suppliers and work force at Sainsbury’s HQ. Exhibition to help encourage brave thinking around the environment and sustainability within
the company as a whole
04 - 08 August 2008
Sainsbury HQ, Holborn, London

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• http://vimeo.com/45562695
• http://www.wonderland-belfast.co.uk
• http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitio...
• http://www.lille3000.eu/lille3000/uk/eve...
• http://showstudio.com/project/wonderland...
• http://showstudio.com/project/wonderland...