Drifting between worlds: the story behind Forivor

Your illustrations feel like they’ve stepped straight out of a storybook. Do the stories come first, or do the characters and place lead the way?

Alice: The story book element of Forivor underpins each of our
disturbing :) It’s clear though collections and I feel passionately that our textiles set out to engage and inspire children in the same way that the pages of their favourite books do. For me that relationship with childhood and some quality time getting authors and illustrators is one that has never left me, it informs my illustrations and provides a path back to evocative memories to help me consider what children might find fun, intriguing and even a little melancholy. Although we produce repeat prints I always describe our designs as pages of a book and we include lots of details in the hope that children and their families can create their own stories. Once we have decided on the habitat our research steers us to certain creatures.

Do you see your storytelling as a quiet form of activism — planting gentle seeds of care in young minds?

Rebecca: Absolutely. Our designs are created with a purpose of fostering a child’s innate love of nature and storytelling. We believe we need the best creative minds who are passionate about nature to solve the many problems facing our beautiful planet. We believe that children who grow up with a curiosity and a passion for nature will be more invested in its protection as they grow up. Telling stories about nature is just another way of learning all about it so it really goes hand in hand.

Alice: I have joked with people in the past that ‘we are trying to change the world one quilt at a time’ but behind that joke there is absolutely a quiet form of activism going on.  We feel that we need to tread carefully around conservations with young people and the environment as it’s so overwhelming and scary for them at the moment. I feel that our activism takes the form of using creativity as a tool to tap into human ingenuity and the determination and passion that young people have. By including the conservation status of the wildlife in our accessories we hope to plant a gentle seed of interest that comes from sparking their curiosity and imagination.

Looking ahead, do you think handmade storytelling and high-tech tools such as ai can live together happily ever after?

Rebecca: I think many of us feel nervous about the role that AI will play in our lives and our society moving forward and its very heavy carbon footprint. Whilst I don’t doubt that AI will or even already has the capacity to create fantastic stories, for us the point of what we do is to create something that sparks joy and imagination and no matter how wonderful an AI story, I don’t believe it will ever be able to replace the joy of genuine creativity or the human touch of the absurd in a good story.

Alice: I feel that we have to accept AI as part of our lives now. Conversations around the fear that it will replace artists and be used in conflict have very quickly become superseded by the fact that most of us are now using it to be more efficient and save time in the workplace. I would be very interested to see what Forivor collection ai would create if we gave it some parameters and I don’t feel threatened by it. A book written by a human will always carry more interest and mystery and the same goes for a drawing. I think lots of artists in different fields are finding a way that they can live happily together including storytelling. While ai is getting better at mimicking us we are also getting more sophisticated at recognising an ai response and I think there will be a fatigue from that. Personally I have made the decision not to use chatgbt because of how resource heavy it is but indirectly I am using it through just being online of course. The reason I wouldn’t use it at the moment is that I enjoy the process of handmade storytelling too much! Having the luxury of being playful is really what keeps us going and wanting to explore different worlds.