Artist, designer and researcher Dr Zane Berzina, originally from Latvia, is involved in interdisciplinary projects across the fields of science, technology, design and the arts. Her practice and research evolves around responsive, active and interactive textiles, new materials, processes and technologies as well as biomimetic practices. In 2005 Zane accomplished a practice-based Ph.D. 'Skin Stories : Charting and Mapping the Skin' at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London using analogies of human skin in relation to her textile practice. Currently she is a Research Fellow at the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles, Goldsmiths College, University of London and an Associate of Goldsmiths Digital Studios. Zane Berzina is also a Co-founder and Co-director of the e-text+textiles project in Riga, Latvia which focuses on investigations of interrelationships between the text and textile practices within the changing technological and electronic environments. Zane Berzina is exhibiting extensively around Europe (Latvia, UK, Switzerland, France, Lithuania, Russia, Germany, Estonia, Italy, Finland) and is actively involved in the cultural debate across design, art, crafts, technology and creativity. She is collaborating with architects, biologists, material scientists, computer and electronics specialists involving new technologies as well as smart and technical materials in her practice-led research work. Recent exhibitions include 'Sk-interfaces' at FACT - Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool, UK; 'Cloth and Culture Now' at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, UK; 'Cyborgs: Man or Machine' at the Science Museum in Newcastle; 'Touch Me' at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; 'Designers' Saturday' in Langenthal, Switzerland; 'Artists at Work: New Technology in Textile and Fibre Art' at the Textile Museum of Prato in Italy; 'Adaptation ? Contemporary Latvian Art Now' at the National Art Museum of Estonia in Tallinn. She has also organised ten solo exhibitions in Berlin, Riga, London and Helsinki; the most recent of them being 'Skin Stories II - Archaeology of Skin' at the Foreign Art Museum in Riga, Latvia in 2006 in close collaboration with the British Council. Her theoretical and practical research outcomes and findings have been incorporated into academic articles and conference papers, which have been presented at international conferences in the UK, USA, Germany, Canada and France. Since 2000 she has worked as a lecturer at The University of Arts Berlin, College of Design and Architecture, Institute for Experimental Fashion and Textile Design, Germany and at Goldsmiths, Visual Arts Department, University of London. She also gives guest lectures, masterclasses and consultations at various higher education institutions and design companies internationally.  artist statement  background