Local students inspired to design for solutions

THE culmination of a month-long residency program at Bendigo Tech School was on display last week in honour of International Women’s Day.

Artist in residence Jess Coldrey is a self-described “creative technologist” and was named one of 50 top women in engineering in the UK.

Coldrey’s work as part of the residency involved exploring the intersection of creativity and technology in solving challenges facing the fashion industry.

During the four-week program, Coldrey visited local high schools to give talks and engage students in discussions on the future of fashion.

Students from Bendigo Senior Secondary College, and Creek Street Christian College learned about the pathways available to them in the creative technology space through guided workshops led by Coldrey.

“I think most of us were really stuck with what we wanted to do in our class,” Year 12 textiles student, Hannah Daffey said.

“And with these little sessions she’s helped I think most of us actually think of what we want to do.”

During the sessions, Coldrey asked students to imagine the future of fashion production and how they could be involved in creating change in the industry.

“I think she inspired us to be sustainable designers, so I think the future of fashion is going to be good,” fellow Year 12 textiles student Shae Couch said.

“Because if we’re getting people out to regional areas, promoting the fashion industry and sustainability and engineering and what we can do, I think it will be really good.”

Coldrey is an advocate for diversity in science, technology, engineering, arts, and maths, or STEAM, with much of her work focused on designing solutions in the fashion industry.

“I think that looking at this and reinterpreting it in the context of sustainability and the context of technology is a really empowering mindset in itself,” Coldrey said.

“It’s not necessarily domestic work, it’s an international supply chain, it’s engineering, it’s chemistry, it’s design.

“Stringing all those elements together has been so fun, it’s been an absolute joy playing with all these different ideas and having the space at to create at the tech school,” she said.

To view some of Coldrey’s work, head to jesscoldrey.com.