Mili John Tharakan

Mili John Tharakan is a Textiles artist researcher who loves to make things with her hands. Her work lies at the intersection of traditional crafts, textiles and technology. Her love for traditional crafts and her desire to see its evolution in the digital age has kept challenging her towards creating artefacts that lie in the gap between ‘craft’ and ‘gadgets’. Her research focuses on ways to build new platforms and tools for traditional craft communities together with practitioners in smart textiles, and related areas who are adopting textile techniques into their fields, to exchange the fluid knowledge and skills found in crafts. Through workshops and projects she looks to develop smart textiles as a contemporary craft, or NeoCraft, where craft is practised to bring about social changes. Her present work continues to explore issues of democratizing technology and finding a new language for the textile craft communities of Asia and Sweden to engage with digital technology and smart materials.

She conducted the first international symposium on Interactive textiles in India, IT+T -Rethinking Textiles and Technology in Design,  in 2006 and since have worked towards introducing this field in India through her work with design schools and companies. Mili completed her Diploma in Textiles from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, India in 2001 and her MA in Textiles from the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK in 2004. She was previously working at the Mixed Reality Lab in Singapore.

She loves bright colours and textiles, loves to travel, meet people and share stories.