Prime Highlights
- Students of design design a rug-making kit with the intention of helping individuals who are dealing with bereavement through craft.
- The activity illustrates the therapeutic potential of hands-on creativity.
Key Fact
- Designed by Free University of Bozen-Bolzano students for Dezeen’s School Shows.
- The kit blends classic exercises in craft with compassionate support for users.
Key Background
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano students came up with a therapeutic rug-making kit that reconciles the creative with the therapeutic. The new design, in Dezeen’s School Shows, was aimed at assisting users in dealing with grief and emotional suffering. The meticulously composed kit holds yarn, tools, and instructions that are straightforward to follow, allowing the users to participate in a meditative hands-on exercise that facilitates emotional release.
The task of making a rug taps into the soothing potential of repetitive making. Color selection, knotting, and weaving become meditative activities where participants can stay in the moment and show their feelings. These kinds of touch activities are healing by nature, where individuals can explain intricate feelings and come away with something good.
Made available, the kit will also work for total beginners with no skills. Members are urged to choose material and design that they connect to on an emotional level, giving the finished rug an emotional value. Each project is a thingification of the member’s experience, memory and record of transformation.
This project recognizes emerging demands for design education in the management of emotional resilience and mental health. With the synthesis of ancient craftsmanship and contemporary therapeutic modalities, the students have established how design can go beyond form to influence the quality of life. Their rug-making kit, a healing tool in itself, testifies to the potency of creativity as healing and development process.
