Lalita Seemontara
Abstract :
Between Seasons is a mixed-media textile art project inspired by the fleeting beauty of seasonal transition at Lake Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand. Emerging from the delicate passage between late summer and early autumn, the work captures a moment when nature seems to exist between two states—when flowers remain in bloom while leaves quietly begin their transformation into shades of gold, amber, orange, and red.
Rather than portraying the landscape as a fixed image, the project interprets nature as a living expression of time, memory, impermanence, and transformation. The coexistence of blooming and fading becomes a poetic metaphor for the beauty found within change: a moment in which beginnings and endings are not opposites, but exist together as part of the same continuous rhythm.
This sensibility is translated through mixed-media textile processes, including wet felting, needle felting, crochet, dyeing, and embroidery. Wool and fibre are transformed into organic forms, tactile surfaces, and sculptural botanical elements, while layers of colour move between luminous purples and violets inspired by flower fields and the warm hues of autumn foliage and sunset. Contrasts between softness and structure, density and transparency, stillness and movement create a visual language that evokes the emotional atmosphere of the remembered landscape.
At the centre of the project are three sculptural felted bags representing interconnected stages of seasonal transformation—from flourishing, through fading, toward change and renewal. Moving beyond their conventional function as fashion objects, the bags become wearable sculptures and vessels of memory, carrying traces of landscape, emotion, and time.
The works are brought together within an immersive textile installation composed of suspended fibres, threads, flowers, leaves, and delicate handcrafted forms. The installation does not attempt to reproduce Lake Tekapo literally; instead, it reconstructs the feeling of being within a remembered landscape, where colour, texture, light, and material become fragments of memory.
Ultimately, Between Seasons is a meditation on the beauty of impermanence. It proposes that beauty does not belong only to moments of full bloom, but can also be discovered in fading, shifting, and becoming. Within this fragile space between two seasons, transformation itself becomes an aesthetic experience—a quiet reminder that change is not the disappearance of beauty, but another form of its existence.
Objectives :
Between Seasons explores the poetic relationship between nature, memory, time, and transformation through contemporary textile art. The project aims to:
- Translate the fleeting beauty of seasonal change into abstract forms, colours, textures, and tactile expressions.
- Explore textile materials and handcrafted processes as a language of transformation and impermanence.
- Transform wearable objects into sculptural forms that embody memories of blooming, fading, and renewal.
- Create an immersive textile installation that invites viewers to experience the emotional beauty of a landscape suspended between two seasons.
Conceptual Framework :
The conceptual framework of Between Seasons emerges from the poetic relationship between nature, memory, time, and transformation. Inspired by the transitional landscape of Lake Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand, the project reflects upon a fleeting moment between late summer and early autumn—a moment when flowers remain in bloom while leaves slowly surrender their green tones to shades of gold, amber, orange, and red. Within this landscape, different stages of life coexist, revealing transition not as an ending, but as a continuous state of becoming.
Nature is approached not as a landscape to be reproduced, but as an emotional and visual memory to be reinterpreted. Flowers, leaves, branches, shifting colours, and the warmth of sunset are abstracted into a personal artistic language of colour, form, texture, and rhythm. Purple and violet evoke the vitality of blooming fields, while warm autumn hues suggest fading, transformation, and the quiet passage of time. Colour therefore becomes more than an aesthetic element; it becomes a carrier of atmosphere, emotion, and memory.
Material transformation becomes another essential language of the work. Wool, fibre, thread, and fabric are manipulated through wet felting, needle felting, crochet, dyeing, and embroidery, allowing natural forms to move between softness and structure, density and transparency, fragility and permanence. These contrasting material qualities echo the rhythms of nature itself—where growth and decay, presence and disappearance, constantly exist alongside one another.
At the centre of the framework are three sculptural felted bags, each embodying a different moment within the cycle of seasonal transformation: blooming, fading, and becoming. Moving beyond their function as wearable objects, the bags become vessels of memory—physical forms through which personal experience, landscape, and time are preserved and transformed.
These individual objects ultimately expand into an immersive textile installation. Suspended fibres, threads, flowers, leaves, and delicate handcrafted forms create a spatial interpretation of a landscape remembered rather than reproduced. The viewer is invited to enter a moment suspended between seasons, where beauty is discovered not only in what is flourishing, but also in what is fading, changing, and becoming something new.
At its core, Between Seasons proposes that transformation itself is a form of beauty—a poetic space where nature, memory, and time continuously reshape one another.
Process / Methodology :
Between Seasons employs a practice-based artistic methodology that brings together observation, memory, material experimentation, and spatial installation. The creative process transforms the transitional landscape of Lake Tekapo into a tactile and poetic expression through contemporary textile art.
The process begins with observation and emotional memory, focusing on the brief transition between late summer and early autumn, when blooming flowers coexist with leaves gradually changing colour. Photographs, colours, organic forms, light, and personal impressions become visual and emotional references for exploring nature, time, impermanence, and transformation.
These natural elements are then abstracted and translated into a visual language of colour, form, texture, rhythm, and movement. Purple and violet evoke blooming flower fields, while amber, orange, rust, and red express fading foliage and seasonal change.
Material experimentation forms the core of the creative practice. Wet felting, needle felting, crochet, dyeing, and embroidery are explored to create contrasts between softness and structure, density and transparency, fragility and permanence. These processes allow natural forms to be reinterpreted rather than literally reproduced.
The experiments are developed into three sculptural felted bags representing Blooming, Fading, and Becoming. Moving beyond their function as wearable objects, the bags become vessels of memory that embody different moments of transformation.
Finally, the three works are brought together within an immersive textile installation. Suspended fibres, flowers, leaves, light, and shadow create a remembered landscape in which the viewer encounters the poetic beauty of change. The installation becomes a space between seasons—where nature, memory, material, and time coexist.
Techniques and Materials :
Between Seasons explores textile materials as both a physical medium and an expressive language for communicating the beauty of seasonal transformation. Wool and natural fibres form the primary materials of the work, selected for their softness, flexibility, tactile quality, and ability to develop organic three-dimensional forms. Additional materials, including threads, yarns, sheer fabrics, and dyed textile elements, are layered together to evoke the delicacy, movement, and changing textures of the natural landscape.
The creative process combines wet felting, needle felting, crochet, dyeing, and embroidery. Wet felting is used to establish the structural foundation of the sculptural bags, allowing wool fibres to merge into soft yet durable organic forms. Needle felting develops three-dimensional details inspired by flowers, leaves, petals, and botanical structures, creating surfaces that appear to grow naturally from the objects.
Crochet and hand stitching introduce delicate lines, open structures, and suspended forms, creating a visual contrast between density and transparency. Embroidery adds subtle linear details that suggest stems, veins, branches, and traces of natural growth. These handcrafted processes emphasise the intimate relationship between material, touch, and time.
Dyeing and colour layering play an essential role in expressing seasonal transition. Purple and violet tones evoke blooming flower fields, while yellow, amber, orange, rust, and red reflect autumn foliage and the warmth of sunset. Rather than reproducing nature literally, colour is used to convey atmosphere, memory, and emotional change.
The final installation extends these materials beyond the individual bags through suspended fibres, threads, felted flowers, leaves, and textile elements. Together, the techniques create contrasts between softness and structure, fragility and permanence, density and lightness, transforming textile craft into a sculptural and spatial language.
Through material experimentation and hand-making, Between Seasons allows fibre, colour, texture, and form to become poetic traces of nature, memory, time, and transformation.
Result / Conclusion :
Between Seasons is a reflection on the quiet beauty found within moments of transition. Inspired by the fleeting landscape of Lake Tekapo between late summer and early autumn, the project transforms a personal encounter with nature into a tactile meditation on memory, time, impermanence, and renewal. Rather than preserving the landscape as a fixed image, the work embraces its constant state of becoming—where flowers continue to bloom as leaves begin to fade, and where beginnings and endings gently coexist.
Through three sculptural felted bags, the changing rhythms of nature are translated into interconnected states of blooming, fading, and becoming. Moving beyond their conventional function as wearable objects, these forms become vessels of memory, carrying traces of landscape, emotion, and passing time. Their organic surfaces suggest that memory, like nature, is never entirely fixed; it shifts, softens, and transforms through experience.
Material and process become an essential part of this artistic language. Wet felting, needle felting, crochet, dyeing, and embroidery allow fibres to grow into flowers, leaves, lines, and layered surfaces. Contrasts between softness and structure, density and transparency, delicacy and weight echo the changing qualities of the natural world. Colour moves from luminous purples and violets toward amber, orange, rust, and red, allowing the passage of the seasons to unfold not as a literal representation, but as an emotional landscape expressed through material.
As the sculptural objects expand into an immersive installation, individual memories become a spatial experience. Suspended fibres, flowers, leaves, and threads create a landscape that exists somewhere between the real and the remembered. The viewer is invited not simply to observe the work, but to encounter a moment held between presence and disappearance—a moment in which nature seems to pause before becoming something new.
Ultimately, Between Seasons celebrates the beauty of impermanence. It suggests that beauty does not exist only in moments of full bloom, but also within fading, shifting, and transformation. A season does not simply end; it leaves traces that become part of what follows. In this sense, the space between seasons becomes more than a transition—it becomes a poetic state of its own, where memory, material, and nature meet.
In Between Seasons, nothing truly disappears; it simply changes its form, allowing beauty to continue through the act of becoming.
References :
Goett, S. (2016). Materials, memories and metaphors: The textile self re/collected. In J. Jefferies, D. Wood Conroy, & H. Clark (Eds.), The handbook of textile culture (pp. 121–136). Bloomsbury Academic.
Hemmings, J. (Ed.). (2023). The textile reader (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Visual Arts.