Courses/ Educational program
THEORY AND PRACTISE
This course provides the students with practical and theoretical skills. It aims to equal the level of higher artistic education. It offers an overview of the process from an idea to the creation of a garment. It facilitates individualized, in-depth and practice-based technical learning. Participants must attend classes three days a week.
Students can later take on complementary courses, in the direction of becoming a fashion designer or a textile artist.
LEARNING TOGETHER
The methodological approach of the program is based on learning through exchanges, co-creation and contribution. We promote the inclusion and participation of students as the core of the program. Students are invited to bring their already existing know-how and skills to the courses. It will be about an exchange of collaborative courses.
Cooperation is at the core of the process and development of courses. We want to create a bridge between the individual know-hows and creative talents.
ART, INNOVATION AND ENGAGEMENT
In this course, fashion design and sewing are theoretically and conceptually contextualized as an innovative practice, eco-responsible artistic creation as well as a socially responsible practice within the Brussels community.
This course will present and discuss a wide range of tools and methods. While at the same time train the students to cooperate, develop and participate in a circular economy within the fields of textiles and fashion.
The act of sewing is approached as a basis for various related fields.
Through the course the students will explore different themes like social fashion, fashion criticism, speculative and media fashion, experimental (fashion and technology, fashion and activism, bio-textile ...).
THE USE OF TOOLS AND FREE SOFTWARE IN CREATIVE PROCESSES
In this course, the students learn to work with industrial sewing equipment like sewing machines, fabric cutters, pattern guns, etc.
Various open-source software is also introduced, that can be used for communication, silhouette creation and digital modelling of patterns and technical drawings of clothing, etc.
The students will learn to work with these tools in their own design and creative process.
NOT JUST DIGITAL
Although the phenomenon of textile design is strongly inspired by the use of digital tools and the internet, we do not limit ourselves to the digital world alone. In this course, we will rather focus on how digital tools can inspire traditional ways of creation, and vice versa. Working with people with various creative skills. From traditional craftsmanship to conceptual creation.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE YEAR
The structure of the course is simple, our training module consists of 3 phases:
An evaluation phase where the student’s prior knowledge will be assessed with a series of sewing tests. At the end of this phase, the student should have understood and mastered the basic concepts of sewing.
A learning phase where the student will be trained to acquire and develop new sets of skills and knowledge within the design and the use of different garments.
A final evaluation phase consists of the creation of an end of the year collection using all the techniques learned in earlier courses. The skills acquired by the students will be measured and a fitting continuation will be offered.
WHAT TO EXPECT?
We anticipate a wide range of possible courses which may include: textile designs, patronage, technical drawing with Adobe suite, classic retouching or recovery sewing, workshops with artists, textile design, screen printing workshop with natural dying and collaborations, etc.
Also, media publications (books, magazines/editions, texts, videos, posters, ...), basic digital creations (websites, applications, software), interactive objects or installations, textile design (objects, prototypes, visualizations ), social styling (participatory performances, situations, events).
There is a lot more, and it really depends on the collaborations between us.
EVALUATION
The final assessment of the students is based on a self-assessment. The student will evaluate their own achievements as well as those of the other participants. In addition, they will be asked to rate the course and help us refine it for future applicants.
We will use a cross-disciplinary skills assessment grid and an assessment grid of the 10 confidence criteria for this process.
FINAL CERTIFICATE
At this point in time, the educational courses are not an officially accredited program. Participants will receive a graduation certificate, but it is not an official diploma. We are working to have the benchmarks evaluated and to be able to have them officially validated by a Brussels institution in the future.
Until then we will do our best to ensure that the students in our training can have access to other certifying training courses from the municipality of Brussels and other Belgian municipalities.
The objective of the educational program is that the knowledge and skills acquired through the courses will be recognized and that participation in it will lead to legally remunerated work and that it will help in the process of the students being recognized as Belgian citizens.
The aim of the program is for migrants to gain financial independence away from inhumane working conditions.