Salt, Indigo, and Memory: Lu Ya-Lan’s Poetic Approach to Sustainable Textile Art

Artist and material researcher Lu Ya-Lan has been awarded the Platinum Prize in Sustainable Fashion Design at the Future Art & Design Award UK 2025 Autumn Season for her profound and materially sensitive project Salt as Memory — Fibre as Future.

Described by the jury as “thoughtful and well-executed, blending refined colour with a strong ecological message,” the work bridges art, ecology, and material philosophy. Rather than presenting sustainability as a stylistic choice, Ya-Lan approaches it as an attentive relationship—a long conversation between fibre, salt, indigo, and the passage of time.

Her research-driven practice traces how materials remember, transform, and respond to their surroundings. Through repetitive gestures, slow processes, and quiet observation, Salt as Memory — Fibre as Future becomes not merely a textile series, but an archive of time and a meditation on the fragile persistence of natural memory.

Lu Ya-Lan is an artist and researcher whose practice explores the intimate relationships between plant fibres, natural dyes, and the passage of time. Her work unfolds as a poetic dialogue between natural observation and tactile intuition, revealing how materials embody memory, emotion, and transformation.

Through her experimental indigo salt-dyeing methods, Ya-Lan investigates how matter responds to environment and touch—uncovering the temporality embedded within life itself. She views sustainability not merely as a design principle, but as a way of honouring memory and acknowledging the intelligence of materials.

Trained in floral design, oriental embroidery, and natural plant-fibre craft, she continues to cultivate creative practices rooted in nature, sensory ethics, and slow, conscious making. Her research proposes that craftsmanship is not only an act of creation, but a continuation of time itself.

Below is the full interview with Ya-Lan.

Q1 – What initially inspired this project? Was there a particular idea, moment, or question that sparked its creation?

Ya-Lan: “To see a need is to discover; to see a problem is to grow curious.”

This thought marked the beginning of my creative journey. The inspiration behind Salt as Memory – Fibre as Future arose from my long-term observation of how natural materials interact with time. I was captivated by the paradoxical tension between salt and indigo—elements that both corrode and preserve.

Their crystallisation and permeation mirror the nature of memory itself: fragile, yet enduring. The project began with a question: Can fibre remember time?

Through daily cycles of dyeing, washing, and documentation, I came to realise that salt is not merely a medium but a writer of time—revealing a profound dialogue between nature, matter, and human perception.

Q2 – What was the most exciting or most challenging aspect of bringing this work to life?

Ya-Lan: The greatest challenge was learning to let go in the midst of uncertainty.

Salt dyeing is an inherently unpredictable process—shaped by humidity, temperature, and even one’s state of mind. Each piece of fabric becomes a record of circumstance rather than an object of control.

This process demands immense patience and humility, reminding me that beauty often emerges from the unforeseen. The most exhilarating moments come when salt and indigo co-create textured landscapes—echoing the slow erosion of seawater, the growth of minerals, and the quiet decay of life. The work thus transforms into an organic archive, where every trace and blemish becomes a memory inscribed by time itself.

Q3 – How was your experience taking part in the Future Art & Design Award UK?

Ya-Lan: Participating in the Future Art & Design Award UK has been both thrilling and deeply humbling. Every award-winning project, past and present, has served as both a lesson and a source of inspiration. What excites me most is that this platform gives visibility to material-based research and to slow, experimental processes—placing them alongside the highly technological and conceptual works that define contemporary design today. This experience reminded me that design is not merely about aesthetics or form—it is an act of empathy: empathy towards nature, towards time, and towards the quiet intelligence that lives within materials. The award has offered me not just recognition, but a reflective space—one that prompts me to reconsider how creation itself can become a profound dialogue between sustainability, memory, and the ethics of making.

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Behance: @Lan Ya Lu