Enhancing Comfort with Vibrant Textiles: “Knotting Knitting” by Ana María Gómez
Based in Brussels, Belgium, the textile design studio amgs was founded by the Colombian designer Ana María Gómez with the overarching mission being “to experiment with the visual, tactile, and spatial dimension of textiles”, according to Gómez herself. For her ongoing textile design project “Knotting Knitting”, the designer aims to awaken feelings of comfort and warmth within the user by providing room for imagination: filled bands within the knitted piece allow one to reshape it and create their own rhythmic combination of colours.
View all pieces by Ana María Gómez, including “Knotting Knitting” >
A major inspiration behind her work, and evident in “Knotting Knitting”, is Gómez’s appreciation for and understanding of theatre and performance. Having previously worked in costume production and scenography, her textile pieces are marked by a transformative nature as she actively makes the user part of the final design. Thus, the relationship between textile, body, and space takes centre stage in her objects. In “Knotting Knitting”, available in Merino wool and cotton, the user can adjust its structure to correspond to one’s body and comfort needs.
“I lik[e] to experiment with color and […] always tr[y] to develop new systems for learning more about it. The result is a very unique pallet of unexpected and unusual, yet harmonious and kind color combinations.”
– Ana María Gómez, designer and founder of “agms” studio
Another fundamental aspect of Gómez’s practice is collaboration, which is of utmost importance in the production process of “Knotting Knitting”. She works closely with a small-scale atelier, specializing in handcrafted textiles and some selected industrial techniques, to realize her tactile pieces adapting to one’s body. Each object is one-of-a-kind due to the machine deciding the rhythm by itself after being given the command to do so. This also speaks for the Colombian designer’s desire to gain knowledge of contemporary, technology-driven approaches, whilst still preserving her passion for traditional ways of making and her need to humanize objects.
Throughout “Knotting Knitting”, Gómez’s design philosophy – one defined by an eagerness to interact with the body, textiles and space – shines through every piece as they radiate comfort and warmth, yet manage to be effortlessly modern and bold in their visual language.
BIO
amgs is a studio created by Colombian designer Ana María Gómez after finishing a Master’s in Textile Design at La Cambre, Brussels (2015). She makes pieces that range from wearable items to eclectic functional furniture, often as the result of collaborations. The core of amgs is to experiment with the visual, tactile, and spatial dimensions of textiles.
In recent years, Gómez has been experimenting in different ways with textiles based on an awareness of different cultural and social worlds. She is highly interested in fortunate encounters between different cultures and ways of thinking, especially where textile has been used as a language, as a way to communicate. Her aim is to gain knowledge of traditional and contemporary ways of working with textiles.
