Anke Loh is a Chicago-based fashion designer and is Full Professor in the Department of Fashion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Loh is a fashion designer by training, and has worked at the nexus of art, technology and fashion for more than 15 years. Her current work focuses on the development of touch-sensitive textiles for the medical community, utilizing the Residency to gain an understanding of how pain before and after surgery can affect the five senses, and how that has changed over time.

“My current research explores the potential for touch-sensitive pillows to encourage users to listen to their bodies, to others and to the sounds around them, to discover new modes of self-expression. My exploration of the five senses—vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste—during this residency will inspire the visual and haptic aesthetic design of the touch- sensitive embroidery and the overall textile design for the touch-sensitive pillows. For the outcomes of my residency at the International Museum of Surgical Science, I envision the final touch-sensitive embroidered pillows to be exhibited in a way that will create a space that nurtures and fosters connections among varies communities to foster healthy connections through our senses.”

Anke Loh, 2024

Anke Loh embraces technology as another way of communicating with the body and its environment. With a background in fashion design, she focuses on textile development and wearable technology, aligning with society and craft. Her collections have been featured in international runway shows and exhibitions including New York Fashion Week, The Centre Pompidou in Paris, Japan’s Osaka Collection Show, and the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago. Her artistic projects, including INTERKNIT and Dressing Light, have attracted international media coverage and recognition, including being honored as a Laureate at the Festival International des Arts et de la Môde in Hyères, France.

INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION

She has forged multiple collaborations with technology-focused individuals, research teams, companies and universities in Europe, Asia and the USA, with the objective of blending fashion with the latest technological advances. She broke new ground by integrating Philips Lumalive panels into dresses and skirts featuring video imagery on soft embedded LED screens, and has partnered with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin to research and explore the possibilities of stretchable circuitry.

Loh’s work has been shown at many international exhibitions, including the Fashion Biennale in Seoul, Korea; Goethe Institut Chicago and NY; TechTextil, Frankfurt, Germany; On You: Wearable Technology at MODA, Museum of Design Atlanta, Georgia; Design Exhibition at the International Symposium on Wearable Computers, Osaka, Japan; A Shaded View on Fashion Film Festival, Polimoda, IFFTI, Florence, Italy; Wear IT Festival, Berlin; EXEMPLARY: 150 Years of the MAK: from Arts & Crafts to Design, Vienna, Austria; Sense and Sensuality: The Art & Aesthetics of Wearable Technology, ADM Gallery, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, The Arts Club Chicago; Brainwriter Installation, Barbican Museum, London;

EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Anke has served as a fulltime professor in the Department of Fashion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2005, and as Chairperson of the Department for five years. She studied fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, earning an MFA in 1999, after which she launched her former fashion design company, Rosso NV.

Learn more at http://ankeloh.net/