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 Tekla's graduate project, titled 'Extensions of Self' was inspired by her own identity crisis which was sparked by her changing facial features as she prepares to undergo surgery to correct her jaw.ARTSTHREAD:Can you describe your concept and creative process? Tekla Sól:I started with an idea that was very abstract and subjective. An unease. In the beginning I didn’t really know what I was talking about. As I kept working and developing the project I understood my self better and slowly my concept developed into something that rounds up everything I have been experiencing in the process. I started with the word identity crisis without knowing where it would take me. In the end I have acceptance. I started with self-images. I was studying the change I had been going through and this unnatural object that was stuck in my body. The images that interested me the most where taken inside my mouth. After that I decided to take the arch of the teeth and gums and study it on the body. The arch is the centre of my problem he is the one that is not in the right place so I enlarged it and tried it on on the body. By that I’m extending my self to the body and from there to the clothing. From these experiments a gathered all my silhouettes. I did a lot of reading research to my concept to understand it better. After doing that I could make better and more informed decisions when it came to the design aspect. For me that was important. I had a handbook of silhouettes, research into the dentistry world, textiles and ideas. From there I could very easily pick what made the most sense to portray my experiences. ARTSTHREAD: Can you explain the thinking behind the key concepts and outcomes of your project? Tekla Sól: The key concept I started working with is identity crisis and the self. I researched what philosophers and sociologist had gathered on those topics I connected the most to what Erik Ericsson had written about it. He wrote about the relationship of continuity and the self. That the self is formed through the perception of your self and that others accept your continuity. My conclusion of the research was that when that continuity changes within yourself but not necessarily with others you get into trouble. It’s a bit superficial problem but something that I think everybody relates to in some way. I also went into research on women artist who make art where they are the main spectacle in some way. From Cindy Sherman I learned how to build characters which I derived from myself and helped me in the first sketches. From that I could I hide while still working with my own self and focus on the form. From Rebecca Horn I learned about body extensions. How to use clothing to extend my own self through clothing. Her art piece called Einhorn was very influential for my graduation project. She made shortly after being in an hospital for a long time. It’s shows a woman in a body brace that goes over the head and has a long horn on top of it walking in a field. The body is restricted but there is magic to it. I had been making tests in weave but it was when I saw this that it all started to make sense. I weaved stockings into the garments and when doing that I created a restriction where it was still free and the body can move as it wants in it but when you look at it it seems you are totally stuck. I have in a way, as Rebecca, given the specialist power over my body and sometimes I feel stuck. I am not. In the end I have six looks that can stand as a metaphor for the whole scale of what I have been feeling. Everywhere from feeling powerful for going to have a surgery where my face will be cracked up to very silly like when there’s food stuck in my braces or something to feeling hopeless when it feels like it’s never going to end. ARTSTHREAD: Have you had to adapt your work to online tutorials? Tekla Sól: My class and I have been very lucky and we have not had to spend a lot of our time at school online. When we have its been for a short time. Mostly, we’ve had theory classes online. ARTSTHREAD: How has online learning changed your outcomes? Tekla Sól: I don’t think I would have gone to weaving if it was not for having to be at home more. Maybe these times that we have gone through have made us think more to our roots. My grandmother and great-grandmother were weavers. I did not use a loom as they did but It’s the same method.  Tekla also looked at artist Rebecca Horn for inspiration, weaving stockings into her finished garments to add a sense of restrictionARTSTHREAD: Did you need to innovate when you had to work by yourself at home? Tekla Sól: I definitely had to be creative to find ways to make it work. At the worst times we would split our time at the school between us so you had to be very organised. ARTSTHREAD: What's one thing that has helped you get through the last 2 years? Tekla Sól: My classmates. Being together in everything and standing behind each others back is what has got me through these years. ARTSTHREAD: What are the most positive learning outcomes from this process? Tekla Sól: I have gained confidence in myself through this process. I have accepted the changes I need to go through on my face and gotten comfortable in the hands of the specialists who decide my future. At the same time I learned to be more open about what I am experiencing and feeling. ARTSTHREAD: How do you think design can help improve the world? Tekla Sól: I want to encourage people to talk about their experiences. When we talk about them we learn that we are not alone in this world having those feelings and reactions. A world where we can talk about our feelings or use them in our creations is a much more interesting world. ARTSTHREAD: What are your hopes for the future? Tekla Sól: I am looking forward to continue to explore new innovations when it comes to fabrics and the fashion industry. I hope I can live a life of curiosity in the future as a designer. ARTSTHREAD: Thank you Tekla - we wish you all the very best See Tekla’s ARTSTHREAD Portfolio Images in slider: Tekla and her work Our Global Design Graduate Show 2022 in collaboration with Gucci is open internationally to all art and design undergraduate or postgraduate students graduating in the Academic Year 2021-22 and the deadline to apply is August 31 2022. 
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In advance of the deadline for Global Design Graduate Show 2022 in collaboration with Gucci, we interview Tekla Sól, a 2022 graduating student from Iceland University of the Arts, BA Fashion Design.
Our Global Design Graduate Show 2022 in collaboration with Gucci is open internationally to all art and design undergraduate or postgraduate students graduating in the Academic Year 2021-22 and the deadline to apply is August 31 2022.
See Tekla’s ARTSTHREAD Portfolio
ARTSTHREAD:Where are you from?
Tekla Sól: I’m from a fjord in the north of Iceland called Eyjafjörður.
ARTSTHREAD: Please describe your workspace?
Tekla Sól: I live in a small studio apartment where my only furniture is my bed, closet, two chairs and a large work table that my uncle gave me. On the table I have my old sewing machine and a knitting machine that I’m trying to master when I need a break from the sewing. I tend to make really big patterns so I have to do them on the floor.
ARTSTHREAD: What is the name, theme, concept and final outcome of your graduate project/thesis?
Tekla Sól: The name of my graduate project is "extensions of the self”. It is an exploration of the self through a time in transformation. Transformation of how I look in the mirror and to the world. I was born with a jaw in the wrong place and now it needs to be brought to its correct position. To start with I have braces and soon surgery. Slowly my face is changing as my jaw moves closer to its rightful place and an identity crisis had grown inside me as I did not recognise the person in the mirror.
Through the graduate project I have studied the form of this deformity, as my doctors call it, and made peace with it and the changes. The final looks show the different outcomes that I got from the study of the arch form of the teeth as well portray feeling of being restricted but at the same time the freedom restrictions.
Tekla's graduate project, titled 'Extensions of Self' was inspired by her own identity crisis which was sparked by her changing facial features as she prepares to undergo surgery to correct her jaw.ARTSTHREAD:Can you describe your concept and creative process?
Tekla Sól:I started with an idea that was very abstract and subjective. An unease. In the beginning I didn’t really know what I was talking about. As I kept working and developing the project I understood my self better and slowly my concept developed into something that rounds up everything I have been experiencing in the process. I started with the word identity crisis without knowing where it would take me. In the end I have acceptance. I started with self-images. I was studying the change I had been going through and this unnatural object that was stuck in my body. The images that interested me the most where taken inside my mouth.
After that I decided to take the arch of the teeth and gums and study it on the body. The arch is the centre of my problem he is the one that is not in the right place so I enlarged it and tried it on on the body. By that I’m extending my self to the body and from there to the clothing. From these experiments a gathered all my silhouettes. I did a lot of reading research to my concept to understand it better. After doing that I could make better and more informed decisions when it came to the design aspect. For me that was important. I had a handbook of silhouettes, research into the dentistry world, textiles and ideas. From there I could very easily pick what made the most sense to portray my experiences.
ARTSTHREAD: Can you explain the thinking behind the key concepts and outcomes of your project?
Tekla Sól: The key concept I started working with is identity crisis and the self. I researched what
philosophers and sociologist had gathered on those topics I connected the most to what Erik Ericsson had written about it. He wrote about the relationship of continuity and the self. That the self is formed through the perception of your self and that others accept your continuity. My conclusion of the research was that when that continuity changes within yourself but not necessarily with others you get into trouble. It’s a bit superficial problem but something that I think everybody relates to in some way.
I also went into research on women artist who make art where they are the main spectacle in some way. From Cindy Sherman I learned how to build characters which I derived from myself and helped me in the first sketches. From that I could I hide while still working with my own self and focus on the form. From Rebecca Horn I learned about body extensions. How to use clothing to extend my own self through clothing. Her art piece called Einhorn was very influential for my graduation project. She made shortly after being in an hospital for a long time. It’s shows a woman in a body brace that goes over the head and has a long horn on top of it walking in a field. The body is restricted but there is magic to it. I had been making tests in weave but it was when I saw this that it all started to make sense.
I weaved stockings into the garments and when doing that I created a restriction where it was still free and the body can move as it wants in it but when you look at it it seems you are totally stuck. I have in a way, as Rebecca, given the specialist power over my body and sometimes I feel stuck. I am not. In the end I have six looks that can stand as a metaphor for the whole scale of what I have been feeling. Everywhere from feeling powerful for going to have a surgery where my face will be cracked up to very silly like when there’s food stuck in my braces or something to feeling hopeless when it feels like it’s never going to end.
ARTSTHREAD: Have you had to adapt your work to online tutorials?
Tekla Sól: My class and I have been very lucky and we have not had to spend a lot of our time at school online. When we have its been for a short time. Mostly, we’ve had theory classes online.
ARTSTHREAD: How has online learning changed your outcomes?
Tekla Sól: I don’t think I would have gone to weaving if it was not for having to be at home more. Maybe these times that we have gone through have made us think more to our roots. My grandmother and great-grandmother were weavers. I did not use a loom as they did but It’s the same method.
Tekla also looked at artist Rebecca Horn for inspiration, weaving stockings into her finished garments to add a sense of restrictionARTSTHREAD: Did you need to innovate when you had to work by yourself at home?
Tekla Sól: I definitely had to be creative to find ways to make it work. At the worst times we would split our time at the school between us so you had to be very organised.
ARTSTHREAD: What's one thing that has helped you get through the last 2 years?
Tekla Sól: My classmates. Being together in everything and standing behind each others back is what has got me through these years.
ARTSTHREAD: What are the most positive learning outcomes from this process?
Tekla Sól: I have gained confidence in myself through this process. I have accepted the changes I need to go through on my face and gotten comfortable in the hands of the specialists who decide my future. At the same time I learned to be more open about what I am experiencing and feeling.
ARTSTHREAD: How do you think design can help improve the world?
Tekla Sól: I want to encourage people to talk about their experiences. When we talk about them we learn that we are not alone in this world having those feelings and reactions. A world where we can talk about our feelings or use them in our creations is a much more interesting world.
ARTSTHREAD: What are your hopes for the future?
Tekla Sól: I am looking forward to continue to explore new innovations when it comes to fabrics and the fashion industry. I hope I can live a life of curiosity in the future as a designer.
ARTSTHREAD: Thank you Tekla - we wish you all the very best
See Tekla’s ARTSTHREAD Portfolio
Images in slider: Tekla and her work
Our Global Design Graduate Show 2022 in collaboration with Gucci is open internationally to all art and design undergraduate or postgraduate students graduating in the Academic Year 2021-22 and the deadline to apply is August 31 2022.