The playful combination between digital and physical

Secil Ugur Yavuz is one of the ten women in our campaign
“Women in Science” at the Free University of
Bozen-Bolzano, being the best example of embarking in an academic
career without renouncing to having a family. In her
research she combines her many interests – textiles, didactics
for children and technology – in a playful combination between
digital and physical. The professor at the Faculty of
Design and Art makes garments more performative, using
open-source technology as she is a strong believer in the maker
culture. In this way she is experimenting with wearable
technologies but also with toys for children: “I don’t
want to design for them, but I ask the digital native children to
co-design their little games”. The Turkish born designer
organizes workshops called “abiti parlanti”, in which she shows
how to mend e-textiles, presenting the topic also in TEDx talks.
So, her research continues to ask questions about how this world
should be shaped and reshaped, as she explains in this episode of
“unibz insight”, the podcast by the Free University of
Bozen-Bolzano.