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People  •  Art + Design  •  Assistant Teaching Professor

Bolor Amgalan

Departments

Art + Design

Education

  • MFA in Design & Technology, Parsons School of Design, The New School
  • MA in Material Futures, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
  • Bachelor of Design in Fashion & Textiles, University of Technology Sydney

Awards

  • 2022 College of Arts, Media & Design Strategic Seed Grant, Northeastern University
  • 2020 VFILES Lab 001 grant
  • 2020 Primer 2020 Speculative Futures Emerging Designer Competition finalist
  • 2019 Women’s International Leadership Fellowship 2019-2020
  • 2018 & 2019 American Association of University Women International Fellowship 2018 and 2019
  • 2018 John L Tishman Scholarship 2018-2019
  • 2018 Parsons Graduate Student Research Award 2018-2019
  • 2018 The New School Provost’s Scholarship
  • 2018 Open Style Lab Design Fellowship
  • 2016 XHIBIT 2016 University of the Arts London competition winner
  • 2015 & 2016 University of the Arts London / ISH Postgraduate Scholarship 2015-2017
  • 2015 First Prize, Australian Craft & Quilt Fair 2015 Art U Wear Competition
  • 2014 Woolmark & Domus Vim Joint Scholarship Highly Commended Finalist

Bolor Amgalan is an experimental anti-disciplinary designer, educator, and design strategist investigating the role of e-textiles, extended reality, and other disruptive emerging technologies as catalysts for social change. Bolor programs hybrid materials that belong to both the digital and analog realms and occupy the space at the intersection of craft values, tangible interface design, and virtual embodiment. Her designs span alternative controllers, creativity support tools, wearables, and digital fashion, and function as culturally sensitive transition design interventions with implications on the future of work and human-machine collaboration.

Prior to Northeastern, Bolor taught at Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute. She consults clients on biometric sensor integration in adaptive clothing, soft robotics, and visitor experiences and is the functional apparel designer at Imago Rehab, a health tech startup and Wyss Institute spin-off, consulting on the design for manufacture, usability, and functional requirements of a soft robotic stroke rehabilitation device.

Bolor’s current research studies NFTs and their respective communities through a craft materiality lens to define artisanal craft for digital wares fabricated from virtual materials. Through a unifying framework synthesis, this work sheds light on how attributes that we ascribe to valuable physical artifacts also have counterparts in the digital marketplace, and how these attributes may be leveraged to design for resilience and long-term value.

Research/Publications Highlights

Papers & Book Contributions:

  • Bolor Amgalan. “Designing Digital Fashion: Opportunities and Constraints”, In Fashion Design Cases: A Student Guide to Learning with Case Studies edited by Fiona Dieffenbacher. New York: Fairchild Books, upcoming.
  • Ray LC & Bolor Amgalan. “Remote Bodies: Collaborative Design and Fabrication Studio for Bodily Interactions Across the Day-Night Divide”. Digitally Engaged Learning Conference 2021.
  • Natalie Friedman, Kari Love, Alexandra Bremers, AJ Parry, Ray LC, Bolor Amgalan, Jen Liu, & Wendy Ju. “Designing Functional Clothing for Human-Robot Interaction”. In: Proceedings of ’21 ACM Symposium on Human Robot Interaction. 2021.
  • Bolor Amgalan. “Apprenticeship 2.0: Crafting with Hybrid Textiles in VR”. Leonardo LABS. 2020.
  • Bolor Amgalan. “Apprenticeship 2.0: Crafting with Hybrid Textiles in VR”. Hindsight Reader. 2020.

Talks & Guest Lectures:

  • NFTs, The New Cultural Currency. Panel talk. International Opportunities in the Arts: Create the Future. Boston. 6 November 2022.
  • Design for Long-term Resilience. Design Perspectives guest lecture. Northeastern University. Boston. 28 October 2022.
  • Gaming to Metaverse: the Future of 3D in Apparel. Panel talk. Product Innovation Apparel NY Conference 2022. NY. 28 June 2022.
  • Fashion and Business in the Metaverse: A Trend or Trick? Panel talk. BEAM. Remote. 26 May 2022.
  • The NFT: Artist’s Friend or Financial Folly? Panel talk. Northeastern University. Boston. 1 April 2022.
  • Hybrid Computational Materialities. Physicality of Machine Learning guest lecture. The New School, NY. 27 October 2021.
  • Blockchain: New Transparencies and the People in the Clothing Value Chain. Guest lecture. The New School. Remote. Feb ’21.
  • Blockchain for Designers and Artisans. Panel talk. Dutch Design Week 2020. Remote. 23 Oct 2020.
  • Hybrid Computational Materialities. Critical Computation Lecture guest lecture. The New School. Remote. 29 Sep 2020.
  • XR & Computational Materialities. Guest talk. Annual Fellowship Luncheon of AAUW. Remote. 12 Nov 2020.
  • Apprenticeship 2.0: Crafting with Hybrid Textiles in VR. Artist talk. Hindsight Festival, The New School. Remote. 13 May 2020.
  • Embracing Extended Reality for Sustainable Fashion & Storytelling. Guest lecture. The New School, NY. 16 Oct 2019.
  • Softable: A Functional Jacket for Independent Dressing. Museum of Science. Boston, MA. 3 Nov 2018.

Workshops:

  • Artisanal NFTs: a Framework for Designing Digital Artifacts with Long-term Value. PRIMER22 Conference. 24 September 2022. An interactive workshop on how digital artifacts can be designed to have long-term value.
  • Introduction to Creative Coding with p5js. Annual EYO Conference AAUW. Remote. 17 April 2021. A hands on workshop introducing middle school girls to creative coding through interactive p5js poster making.
  • Critical Making and Speculative Fashion. School of Fashion, The New School, NY. 2 April 2021. An interactive workshop on research through speculative fashion for fashion and design juniors.
  • Designing Functional Clothing for Human-Robot Interaction (with Natalie Friedman, Kari Love, Alexandra Bremers, AJ Parry, Ray LC, Jen Liu, Wendy Ju). ACM Symposium on Human Robot Interaction ’21. 12 March 2021. An interactive workshop on how clothes can signal and be functional for robots.
  • Building Virtual Worlds. SigmaCamp. Remote. 17-20 August 2020. A 3-day hands-on workshop on virtual world building and 3D content creation techniques for VR development for high school students.
  • Zero-waste & Fabric Manipulations. Flourish Festival: Design the Future, GreenUps x Fashion Revolution. Sydney, Australia. 29 November 2014. An interactive workshop introducing zero-waste fashion and textile techniques to upcoming designers.

Exhibitions:

  • 2022 UN:RESOLVED 2.0 exhibition. 208 Bowery. New York, NY. Virtual Matter.
  • 2021 UN:RESOLVED exhibition. Parsons School of Design. New York, NY. Apprenticeship 2.0: telociphered.
  • 2021 BEYOND X.Y.Z exhibition. VFILES x FABERIUM. New York, NY. Khalkh Deel NFT.
  • 2021 VFILES Lab 001 Showcase. VFILES. New York, NY. FABERIUM, an artisanal NFT marketplace.
  • 2020 Dutch Design Week 2020. Dutch Design Foundation. Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Apprenticeship 2.0 VR.
  • 2020 Primer Speculative Futures. Design Futures Initiative. New York, NY. FaberCoin: Digital Textiles as Cryptocurrency.
  • 2020 Hindsight Festival. Parsons School of Design. New York, NY. Apprenticeship 2.0: Crafting Hybrid Textiles in VR.
  • 2019 ENTER PLAYMODE Exhibition. Wonderville Arcade. New York, NY. Pumboo.
  • 2019 Tech & Social Good Exhibition. International House. New York, NY. Fold/Unfold.
  • 2019 Earth Day 2019: Protect Our Species. Earth Day. New York, NY. Trash Trivia.
  • 2019 Universal Materiality. Sheila C. Johnson Design Center. New York, NY. Softable.
  • 2018 Aging & Mobility Annual OSL Showcase. Museum of Science. Boston, MA. Softable.
  • 2018 Open Style Lab 2018 Showcase. The New School. New York, NY. Softable.
  • 2017-18 Lloyds Recruitment Events. Lloyds Banking Group. Tour around the UK. Lloyds Emotion Visitor Experience.
  • 2017 Dutch Design Week 2017. Design Design Foundation. Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The Face Test Experience.
  • 2017 Material Futures Exhibition. Central Saint Martins. London, UK. Match Clinic (#2 in The Face Test series).
  • 2017 Milan Design Week. The Salone Internazionale del Mobile. Milan, Italy. The One (#1 in The Face Test series)
  • 2016-17 Out of Hand: Materializing the Digital. Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences. Sydney, Australia. Metabolism SS15.
  • 2016 XHIBIT. University of the Arts London. London, UK. Fold/Unfold.
  • 2016 YiHaus Exhibition. Value Retail. Shanghai, China. Collective Beauty.
  • 2015 Craft & Quilt Fair. Expertise Events. Tour around Australia. Surfing Kangaroo.
  • 2015 Hair Expo 2015 Opening Night Show. Sydney Exhibition & Convention Center. Sydney, Australia. Architectonic.
  • 2015 Mixed Media Moments. Art Moment Gallery. Sydney, Australia. Metabolism SS15.
  • 2015 NJAL x D3 Exhibition. Not Just a Label x Dubai Design District. Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Metabolism SS15.
  • 2014 DUO Fashion Show. University of Technology Sydney. Sydney, Australia. Metabolism SS15.
  • 2013 Transform: Interdisciplinary Lab. University of Technology Sydney. Sydney, Australia. Ironic Growth: Hybrid Form.
  • 2013 Naadam Fashion Show. Asuult Photo Tour x Bess Tailor. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Naadam Resort 2013 Collection.
  • 2012 Ghandi Now Exhibition. University of Technology Sydney. Sydney, Australia. Ghandi Now short film.
  • 2010 Shades of Gres Exhibition. University of Technology Sydney. Sydney, Australia. Couture #1 & #2 illustrations.