Four wooden looms sit in a semi-circle in UMass Dartmouth’s CVPA Gallery, giving passersby a chance to take a seat and weave yellow, blue and orange threads together.

The student-crafted art installation “Weaving with Light” has returned to UMass Dartmouth following a trip to Chicago. Students first developed the idea last spring, and the proposal was accepted last August to be part of the SOFA (Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art) Connect exhibit in Chicago. The installation will be on display until March 3.

“It’s an international show of about 200 exhibitors from around the world,” said artisanry professor James Lawton, who helped advise the project. “This is the third year of this project where they invite schools from around the country to put out proposals for design spaces.”

Six students, Hanna Vogel, Kate Dickinson, John Middleton, Alec Andersen, Tony Beal and Christopher Rogers, along with three advisors from the faculty, Lawton, Charlotte Hamlin and Shingo Furukawa, developed the project in 2015.

“We have a phrase is the world of textiles called the ‘cradle-to-coffin’ idea. It’s that each and everyone us from the moment of our birth until the moment of our death are interacting with fabric and textiles,” said Beal, 21, a textile design major. “That anthropological connection was important. To see a large group of people come together over an ancient art was riveting.”

The six schools that were accepted into the program were given a 24-by-24-foot space to exhibit in Chicago. The installation from UMass pays homage to New Bedford’s textile industry while focusing on interaction. Each of the looms are attached to a wooden floor, simulating factory floorboards, and there’s even a place for weavers to punch in at a time clock.

In Chicago, the students who crafted the piece led about 600 people through a weaving lesson across four days. Originally, the students were considering mechanized devices, but settled on rigid heddle looms so they could teach art patrons in seconds. In the end, about four yards of cloth were produced on each of the six looms.

“For the competition, there’s three elements: seating, lighting and design,” said MFA Ceramics student Hanna Vogel, 29. “We started thinking about New Bedford’s textile history and also how to make textile practice in our installation relate to contemporary fiber artists. A big part of that was for it to be participatory.”

The version on display at UMass scales the project down slightly (there are only four looms), but the effect is the same. Strands of thread are pulled taught from the wooden looms and suspended from the ceiling where they unspool from the other end of the room.

“The best part was when we were in Chicago seeing the range of people who were excited to learn to weave,” said Vogel. “All the fabric on these walls is from that weekend. It’s beautiful to see each person’s different style, whether they’re experimental or weaving tightly.”

“For me the most powerful thing was that so many of us in different departments came together,” said Dickinson.

The group included students from different majors, including ceramics, furniture design, textile arts and digital media. Dickson, for instance, is a graphic design student who developed the look of the punchcards for the time clock.

While the loom technology may appear lo-fi, the pieces were modeled on computers, cut using a ShopBot and are capable of being flat packed. To help fund the project, the students used an online crowdfunding website.

“The process of making art is just as much an art form as the finished product,” said Beal.

UMass Dartmouth's CVPA Campus Gallery is located on the first floor of the CVPA Building on the Main Campus (285 Old Westport Road). Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Friday from 10 a.m. to noon. The last day to weave at the exhibit is March 3.