Lucie Libotte is a designer who uses material as a starting point for wide-ranging explorations. She is from Belgium and graduated from BA Textile Design at Central St Martins. She began exploring how we interact with textiles and how this changes our perceptions and ideas of our surroundings. In the course of her MA in Textile Futures, she discovered the importance of the fundamental origins of materials. As Libotte says : “I am interested in the materials origins as a representational system.”
 
House dust is commonly perceived as dirty, intrusive and repulsive. We know it as fine grey dry powder consisting of tiny particles and waste matter collecting on surfaces or carried in the air. It is often associated with unkempt and neglected environments, where as a clean environment is considered as civilized and proper.
 
‘Dust matters’ aims is to re-evaluate this ‘dirt’, and convey the value of dust as an indicator of our environment, showing how it reflects our daily life and traces our journey through the world.

Focusing on the individual’s private sphere as the research arena, Libotte collected samples of dust from various homes, observing and analysing the different inherent components. The physical value of those components was discovered to be substantial.
 
This value is brought to life with as an unusual coating layer on ceramic objects. Using “dust matter” technique, she created a range of bespoke vessels that display the different sampled environments, and ultimately tell a story of their origin location.
 
Dust Matters is definitely not a concluded project. In fact, Libotte considers it to be at an early stage of its progress. For its further development, she would be interested in finding a space not only to work but that could also simultaneously inform the making of new body of work. This would allow her to create a design piece(s) that relates to that space, both in regards to the dust properties and the historical narrative attached to the setting.
 
lucielibotte.com