Roberta Schreyer

Nature is an activist. Roberta the facilitator.

Roberta Schreyer is an interdisciplinary textiles researcher, artist and activist.

She investigates how storytelling can be used in the arts to restore the broken human-nature relationship through mixed-media textiles installations in order to tackle the climate crisis. She works with and for nature using a variety of textiles processes with a strong focus on natural dyes, print and knit. Language, symbolism, photography and film play an important part in the development of her textiles installations. Her creative practice strongly relies on her dissertation titled 'Just in time for the climate not to change?' for which she received a distinction.

Roberta gives the natural environment a voice by dreaming of a hopeful future where humans don’t deplete their ecosystems but heal them based on nature’s circular economy. She aims to set hope within the climate narrative to encourage and educate society so that humans and nature can return to living in balance on Earth.

During her MA in Textiles Roberta has also participated in the Bio-inspired Textiles Summer School, collaborated with Synthetic Anatomy students from King’s College London and led the sustainability-focused platform SustainLab at the Royal College of Art. Roberta is further facilitating the conversation between humans and nature by running textiles-based workshops.

Her final project was strongly supported by a generous yarn sponsorship from UPW.

NATURE IS AN ACTIVIST: How can we use protest and storytelling in the arts to create hope within the climate narrative to achieve an earth-positive future where humans and nature heal their broken relationship?

NATURE IS AN ACTIVIST is a textiles protest with and for nature investigating how we could use hope as an engine for positive change in order to tackle the climate crisis by reconnecting to nature’s cycles.

This project relies on two of Earth’s most ancient inhabitants, trees and stones, to facilitate change and to translate between man, nature, past, present and future. They are manifestations to educate and empower society to heal our relationship with our home, Planet Earth.

NATURE IS AN ACTIVIST uses nature as a tool relying on a strong connection to nature, its materials and colours.

With the help of the healing properties of stones and the wisdom of trees I invite you to make peace with nature, to re-enter its cycles and to let it back into our urban lives.

NATURE IS AN ACTIVIST

Trapped Shadow

Attention Tree

Auwald

Trapped Trees investigates nature confined by man-made materials in the urban environment in the form of a soft textiles protest.

Medium:

Digital Knit

NATURE IS AN ACTIVIST: pHrint , Silkscreen print with reactive natural dyes

Development of a method to achieve a range of colours through manipulating the organic chemistry of natural reactive dyes.

Medium:

Silkscreen print with reactive natural dyes

NATURE IS AN ACTIVIST: Dreamstones for the planet , Mixed-Media: Recycled Textiles Waste, Dye, Print, Stitch, Knit, Crochet, Felt

Inspired by my childhood worry rocks, Dreamstones for the planet are textile artefacts that set hope in the climate narrative to encourage a dream of an earth-positive future in balance with the cycles of nature. Each stone is unique using a variety of textile construction methods and materials.