blind consumption

After seeing El Anatsui's work with unusual materials and Ai Wei Wei's brilliant concepts, this is what my project transformed into:

Poster: my design, styling, and photography/editing.

The idea of "blindness" transformed from a literal condition into a more conceptual idea - knowing that a situation is occurring but ignoring its presence. Inspired by the tragic factory collapse in Bangladesh (Read more here and sign the petition here), my work began as a collection of shopping bags from the companies involved - Nike, H&M, Gap, Zara, Forever21, Walmart, and so many more....   I constructed a garment from the H&M bags to emphasize that the extravagance of clothing and the fashion industry had reached a critical point. How we choose to respond to a situation like the Bangladesh factory collapse will ultimately impact the integrity of future crises in the industry. In the poster above, the word "consume" acts as a literal veil over the companies involved in the tragedy. How can we continue supporting these companies so blindly when their actions have caused the death of over 600 individuals in the world? The exaggerated design of the dress against the repetition of shopping bags and literal consumption of alcohol is a very direct depiction of this message.

Process images:

Developing skirt

Figuring out straps and waist closure. Solution: Ties that tuck into "pocket".

            

Alternative Poster (Discarded):

ai wei wei {never sorry}

Never Sorry, the documentary about Ai Wei Wei, was incredibly inspiring for me. In fact, the entire concept of my project changed after I watched the movie. His simple interventions with a material consistently create a clear and powerful message. Ai Wei Wei seems to do this so effortlessly - that is, using a "signifier" and "signified" to convey a strong message, usually political.  As he stated at the beginning of the documentary, "Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort." Ai Wei Wei is different from other Chinese artists in that his political statements are more aggressive – less subtle than typical Chinese artists. He seems convinced of the power of the internet to spread ideas and bring about collective acion. He says, "Blogs and the internet are great inventions for our time because they give ordinary people an opportunity to change public opinion." His artwork is often minimal in terms of material used; for example, in the Munich installation called "Remembering", in reference to the student deaths of the Sichuan earthquake, Ai Wei Wei simply covered the façade of the building with 9,000 backpacks. (However, this did make me curious about what happened to 9,000 backpacks once the installation was removed...) Rather than deriving his artwork from an aesthetic source, his influences are conceptual, resulting in a socio-political statement. As I was watching the documentary, I wondered how this approach could be applied to fashion design. Why should so much time and effort be put into making clothing that is just a manifestation of some aesthetic style? There are certainly designers whose work often has political or social influences - including Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen's collections - but much of fashion is not. I loved the multiplicity in the meaning of Ai Wei Wei's dynastic vase destruction. While it represents a destruction of tradition and old customs, it also reminds the world that destruction like this happens every day... without anyone really thinking about it. Ai Wei Wei's mother, Gao Ying, said something that struck me: "One person cannot solve an entire country's problems... but if everyone ignores the country's problems what will happen?" As an artist or a designer, how do you decide how much or how little you are politically involved? How much difference can one person make? These are valid questions for our society that is trying to deal with structural flaws and other limitations of modern life. Ai Wei Wei strongly believes that each person must fully utilize their freedoms, or to "earnestly cherish their rights" - which in his opinion is the "essence of society." In his artwork, photos are used primarily as documentation. As an artist, Ai Wei Wei has become almost a brand for what he considers "liberal thinking and individualism." His definition of optimism: "[is] whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are still curious, whether you still believe there are possibilities." The sunflower seed installation at the Tate Modern was one of the most impressionable moments for me. It was a beautiful and shocking realization that all 108 MILLION seeds were hand crafted and painted, representing that "every entity out there is its own thing."

el anatsui and transformation @ bk museum

After visiting the Brooklyn Museum twice in the past two weeks, I have a better understanding of both El Anatsui's Grace and Gravity exhibit and Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas. 

Gravity and Grace:

Gli (Wall), 2010

Drainpipe, 2010

Seers, 1993, modified 2010

El Anatsui's work is site-specific, meaning it is altered to suit the installation space each time it is displayed, a reflection of his "nomadic" lifestyle. His walks around Nsukka are often mentioned; he transforms the objects he collects on these walks into works that are often about movement. The bottle caps and other metal scraps used in El Anatsui's curtain-like installations are an innovative use of material because of their literal and conceptual connotations. Also, his unique materials prevent his work from being too easily categorized. El Anatsui's "elevation of mundane objects" creates universal statements about movement, links and trade, as well as being a "celebration of performance and chance". The context of works like Drifting Continents is traced to alcohol trade and the subtle connections that link the bottle caps to their sources in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Works like Gli (Wall) are symbols of walls as religious, political and social constructions. El Anatsui made a great statement about this particular piece: "Walls are meant to block views... but they block only the view of the eye - the ocular view. When the eye scans a certain barrier, the imagination tends to go beyond that barrier. Walls reveal more things than they hide." To me, his linked metal installations are also ironic, in a sense. Metal, as a material, is expected to be rigid, fixed, and flat, but his work makes the material appear like drapery – fluid and rippling. This aesthetic corresponds to his love of the nonfixed form - "the artist is not a dictator," he reminds us. His beautiful wall hangings Red Block and Black Block have subtle textural and chromatic variations. In these two works, El Anatsui explores the "monumentality and meditativeness of a single color," that is reminiscent of Rothko and Richter's abstract color paintings.

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Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas:

The role of the artist in this exhibit is to reflect the connection between the two worlds of life and death. The objects have ceremonial, educational, religious, or other similar purposes to reflect the functions of the universe, like natural cycles of fertility and regeneration. The purpose is to represent the cycle of life and death as a transformation; this cycle is an intrinsic part of the spiritual beliefs and social practices of the cultures. The artists of these objects sought to create a fluid relationship between the supernatural world and the human world. They are sometimes functional, but not in a utilitarian sense - the talismans, vases, masks, pipes, dolls or charms are used for connecting with the spirit. In the more recent objects, the context changes with the influence of Christian beliefs. The objects I was most attracted to were the talismans and charms, since that was the format of my last project.  Organic forms and roughness characterized the talismans in this exhibit.  I love the idea of these mysteriously private objects that are used in order to ward off evil or bring positivity to one's life. Another interesting element of the exhibit was its mention of psychoactive substances, used by indigenous peoples to acquire an altered mental state – a state of transformation that would allow communication with nature and the spirit world. They used these "hallucinogenic plants [to] produce ecstatic trances that are often characterized by visions of brilliant, swirling geometric patterns, sensations of flight, and the feeling of acquiring animal attributes and capabilities."