The third Materials Dialogues workshop by Madetrans from Polimi and the Icelandic Textile Center took place in Blönduós.
It was a three-day, hands-on journey into bioregional materials and situated making led by Dr. Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete and Dr. Elena Albergati (Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano).
The workshop gathered artisans, artists, and designers interested in exploring how local ecosystems can inform new material practices - rooted in craft, experimentation, and environmental attention.
Photo credits: Elena Albergati
Back at the Textile Center, the group shifted into crafts and making. The focus was on biomaterials and bio-composites, experimenting with animal and vegetal biopolymers and combining them with seaweed, volcanic sand, Icelandic wool, and other locally abundant available resources.
Using open “recipe” formats, participants developed mixtures, tested proportions, and observed how each ingredient influenced viscosity, drying behaviour, flexibility, strength, translucency, and colour. Each trial became both a material sample and a learning event, an opportunity to compare outcomes, exchange knowledge, and build shared vocabulary around what the materials were “doing.”
Photo credits: Elena Albergati
The workshop encouraged a broad range of fabrication techniques, bridging familiar craft gestures with experimental methods. Some processes echoed kitchen-based practices - mixing, heating, thickening, setting - where temperature, timing, and patience shaped results.
Others drew from ceramic-like techniques, including moulding, pressing, texturing, drying, and exploring the role of substrates. Alongside these manual approaches, participants also tested the integration of tools and machines, working with laser engraving to explore surface interventions and patterns, and using mechanical craft techniques such as sewing and assembly to investigate how soft and flexible samples could become part of textile-based forms.
Photo credits: Elena AlbergatiAs experimentation progressed, the space became a shared studio-lab; tables filled with prototypes, notes, tools, seaweed traces, fibres, and evolving material families. Participants documented processes and outcomes throughout the workshop, capturing key steps, variations, and unexpected behaviours. This documentation is central to the Materials Dialogues approach; it supports knowledge exchange across communities and makes learning transferable beyond the moment of making.
Photo credits: Elena Albergati
The workshop culminated in a small material showcase titled “When the River and the Ocean Meets,” bringing together the samples and demonstrators developed during the three days. The title reflects both the geography of the place and the workshop’s central theme, material transformation at the meeting point of ecosystems, traditions, and emerging practices.
The final selection captured a spectrum of outcomes - from translucent seaweed-based films to sand-filled composites, wool-integrated surfaces, and hybrid textile experiments - each carrying traces of the local territory and the collective process that shaped them.
Photo credits: Elena Albergati