The collection is inspired by, the remarkable and intelligent Humpback whales and the actual pattern of the sound waves from one of their songs they sing. Their complex acoustic vocalization, incredible social institutions and their language ability, which gives these sea-creatures, the potential to communicate from north pole to south pole with very low frequency sound during their 68,500 km of migration inspired the artist for creation of this collection Even though many scientists and acoustic biologists dedicated to decode these songs, the mystery of Humpback whales’ songs remains one of the undiscovered treasures of nature.
The idea of the collection started to develop during and after a lethal injury that happened to the artist. “During unconsciousness, pain and relapse, I have had recurring dreams about swimming in the oceans, walking bare foot on sands in unknown deserts and watching giant whales breaking out of the water, a sort of repetitive, chain like visions that started to draw my attention to these beautiful creatures and contemplating about them slowly helped me to regain a mental clarity and subsequently my physical health. The humpback whales are one of the most undiscovered creatures on our planet to date, the characteristics of these mammals, their vocalization, the tough and challenging journey they go through each year and their intellectual abilities to communicate with each other and us mesmerized me and I felt like they have invited me to share a journey with them as if I am one of them”.
According to Dr. Fred Sharpe, Biologist at the Alaska Whale Foundation (AWF), who has been studying humpback whales since the 1980s; humpback whale brains are laced with spindle neurons and in humans spindle neurons are associated with language acquisition, social intelligence, facial recognition, and compassion. These humpback whales, they have essentially had the ocean internet for millions of years.
Based on her findings, Saaku’s creative director decided to design a pattern for the fabric of the collection, a pattern that is rich in concept, dazzling in idea, noticeably communicative and illustrative for its niche audiences. The designer of the collection sought help from a sound engineer, to extract the sound spectrum of the humpback whale song, she then started to design the ideal graphical shapes and forms with reference to the sound spectrogram, which led to the design of a whole new pattern.
Due to the cubic form and pixelated nature of the final pattern, the creative director, further decided to use the traditional weaving method of ikat (A dyeing and weaving technique), to create her very own %100 handmade fabrics for the collection. To ensure the authenticity of the craft, the designer travelled to the city of Yazd; home of traditional Ikat in Iran, and with the help of one of the great masters of Ikat craft, the process started.
For the designer the bare foot walk on the dunes of sands was in her dreams resembled a deja vu, when she was led to the city of Yazd, in the heart of the main desert of Iran, to pursue her dream of weaving a timeless and iconic fabric with ikat method.
The craft of Ikat involves applying the designed pattern on bundles of yarn, calculating the gaps and numbering the bundles, choosing the right colour for the pattern and dying the yarn, warping the threads, attaching the head of the yarn into the tail of the previous threads on the loom, and finally weaving the fabric embellished with the song of the humpback whale. The main material of the fabric is a blend of eco-friendly viscose.
“The project took place during the corona virus pandemic, when for the purpose of weaving the fabric, we (I and my partner) had to safely travel to the desert city of Yazd in the middle of a hot summer, with restrictions and high risks involved. To achieve the maximum resemblance to the actual designed pattern, we had to redo the rubber banding process many times. Since the coloring method of the Ikat is quite complicated and hand done, the interpretation of the pattern was a tedious work. We had to spend more than 10 hours a day, double masked with poor air conditioning in a 34 degrees warehouse which was at times unbearable. The work started to get tougher when it came down to the implementation of the pattern on the fabric, considering that the real-life size of the long-woven fabric was about 50 meters. Calculating the gaps and covered areas with black rubber bandings around the bundles of yarns, which is a step in coloring the fabric, was an intricate job and quite arduous given the circumstances and the hot weather. But interestingly, the tougher and challenging the journey became the more it motivated us to accomplish the goals of the project and the energy force of the Humpback whales pushes me to finish the job”. This collection is designed and created within 6 months of hard work, hoping to pay tribute to the oceans and all its living creatures especially the magnificent Humpback whale, as well as those who preserve them.
