Frances Geesin

Geesin is a textile artist and Reader at The London College of Fashion. Her research and practice are interwoven, a continuous investigation into textile, fibre and process. She studied painting then weaving at The Royal College of Art and worked in industry as a colourist and knitted fabric designer. She made numerous clothes for TV, film and dance and exhibited her experimental textiles with a small group of textile artists. In 1995 she gained a PhD at The Royal College of Art and was awarded the BSI and Daler Rowney prize for Innovation. She was a Research Fellow in the Fashion and Textile Department until 1999. During her research she discovered the potential of conductive fibres, introducing her discoveries to the 'Design for Life' team at Brunel University and further developing her work in intelligent fabrics and wearable electronics as a consultant to Philips Design. She has worked with her partner Ron Geesin on two interactive light and sound installations for the Science Museum in London. She seeks out industrial fabrics to test and experiment for their potential as a visual language which is realised in fine and applied art applications. The emphasis of her research is in aesthetics and the communication of ideas. She explores industrial shielding fabrics and fibres and manipulates and electroplates thermoplastic materials. Geesin enjoys the support of the non-woven company COLBOND and Web Dynamics and has used their fabrics to collaborate with fellow practitioners, most notably Scilla Speet, course leader at Central Saint Martins. Their work resulted in a Gold Award for Technical Innovation from The Goldsmiths Craft and Design Council for two consecutive years. She lectures and exhibits her work in the UK and abroad: 'Through The Surface' at The Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan 2005 and at venues in the UK during 2004 including The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts; 'Artists At Work' [New Technology in Textile and Fibre Art] Prato, Italy 2003; 'Fashion In Motion' at the V&A, London. In 2003 she was awarded the Arts Foundation Fellowship for Textile Design. More recently, her fascination and involvement with nanotechnology has led to a collaboration with Dr. Andreas Briel of Schering AG, Berlin in MRI imaging, the work being exhibited at the EuroNanoForum 2005 in Edinburgh.

Geesin is an Associate of the Institute of Nanotechnology and is currently interpreting nano images for communication to be shown at galleries and alternative venues. She has developed a project called 'Fabrics of the Social Mind' with a Cognitive Neural Scientist at Manchester University. She continues to research alternative applications for shielding fabrics and is a member of the collaborative practice-based research project 'Worn Again: Rethinking Recycled Textiles' which is based at Chelsea College of Arts. Geesin is also a member of the team from LCF developing a research project 'Living Colour' with the School of Materials at Queen Mary University of London.