Q&A with Viviana Losacco: Translating Nature into Material Landscapes

Your work draws heavily on natural systems, from fungal networks and lichens to Mediterranean flora. How do you translate these ecological processes into abstract, tactile landscapes? 

What draws me to nature is the intelligence behind its forms. I’m fascinated by the way organisms grow, adapt, connect and transform. Understanding these processes is where every project begins. 

Whenever I start a new project, I spend a long time observing my subject. I look at dozens of images, trying to understand it beyond its appearance. I’m interested in how a plant grows, how it changes over time, how it occupies space and what gives it its unique presence. I’m searching for its character rather than its shape. 

From there, I begin sketching. The final piece isn’t a representation of a flower, a lichen or a landscape, but an interpretation of how I experienced it. I don’t want people to recognise a specific place immediately. I want them to feel something that reminds them of it. 

I think this has always been my way of seeing the world. Even when I worked in fashion, I wasn’t copying nature—I was trying to extract its identity. My textiles become landscapes where perception is translated into texture, relief and material. They ask what nature might feel like if we experienced it through memory or a dream rather than through sight alone. .

You describe your practice as a ‘Material Soul—Circular Practice’, using industrial wool remnants within a domestic-loop economy. How does working with reclaimed materials influence the forms, colours and textures you create? Does the material ever dictate the final piece? 

The idea always comes first, but the material definitely has a voice. I mainly work with industrial wool remnants alongside carefully selected new yarns, trying whenever possible to keep a balance between reclaimed and new materials. For me, circularity isn’t only about sustainability. It’s also about accepting that every material already has its own history, limitations and possibilities. 

After developing the composition through sketches, I begin matching materials to the atmosphere I’m trying to create. Some ideas need a flatter, more graphic surface, while others require something softer, grainier or almost velvety. Different yarns allow me to express those subtle differences. 

Working with reclaimed materials also means embracing unpredictability. Sometimes I don’t have enough of a particular yarn, or I discover that a texture behaves differently once it’s tufted. In those moments I don’t see the material as something resisting me, but as something I collaborate with. I might adjust a colour transition or slightly rethink part of the composition, always trying to stay as close as possible to the feeling that inspired the work in the first place. The finished piece often becomes something neither the material nor I could have achieved alone. 

Many of your pieces invite touch through varying pile heights, relief tufting and sculptural elements. What role does haptic experience play in your work, and do you think contemporary textiles need to engage us beyond the visual? 

Touch is at the heart of my practice. We live in a culture where we’re encouraged to look at things but rarely to touch them. Textiles are different. They naturally invite physical interaction, and I think that’s one of their greatest strengths. 

I use different pile heights, sculptural reliefs and contrasting textures because they allow people to experience a work with their whole body rather than only through their eyes. Our hands can recognise rhythm, softness, resistance and temperature before we even begin analysing what we’re looking at. That kind of sensory connection feels incredibly important to me. 

I believe contemporary textiles have the potential to reconnect us with materiality in an increasingly digital world. Touch creates a slower and more intimate way of experiencing an artwork. For me, that’s something worth preserving and continuing to explore.