Iceland Workshop

This workshop brought together teachers, mentors, and textile students from the Fjölbrautaskólinn í Breiðholti (FB) in Reykjavík to share insights and explore how electronics can be incorporated into textile projects. 28 people attended, including 7 mentors and teachers, with the remaining participants drawn from the FB textile department.

Anna Reneau opened the session with welcome remarks and an initial networking session, setting a tone that was deliberately informal and welcoming. A key focus of the introduction was making sure students felt comfortable in the Fab Lab environment and understood that support was there for them, an essential foundation before any technical learning can happen.

Guest speaker Emma Shannon  then delivered a keynote on her work at the intersection of technology and textile craft. Shannon is a Reykjavík-based textile artist and designer whose current focus is e-textiles for education, art, and performance. She works on a wearable technology project within the audio engineering department at Háskóli Íslands, and her work has been exhibited at DesignMarch, the Design Museum, and Raflost Electronic Arts Festival in Iceland, as well as internationally at Fabricademy Boot Camp in Jordan, the World Fab Conference in Bhutan, and the Fabricademy Open Lab in Düsseldorf. She has also participated in the Prague Fashion Tech Sprint, taught workshops in e-textiles and visible mending and upcycling, and presented at the Nordic Textile Conference.

Following the keynote, Anna Reneau facilitated the Curiosity Jar Activity, a workshop designed as an icebreaker to encourage students to ask questions of their teachers and mentors in a more informal setting. Getting students comfortable enough to be curious and to engage openly with the people supporting them is central to the FabConnectHer approach.

The session closed with a detailed overview of the MentHer Platform for the educators and mentors present, exploring how the platform can support their ongoing work with students.

Overall, the turnout for this event was really great. Emma Shannon’s presentation was insightful and creative. It is also important that with STEAM, we do not forget the arts. It is important to try to get art students into the Fab Labs and to use the technology and expertise at their disposal.

The next steps from this event are to get Emma Shannon to come and do an e-textile workshop for the students. Also, it is important to make sure that mentoring continues, so contact information for Emma and the other mentors will be shared with the students from this event.