In everyday life, we do not usually concern ourselves with the hypodermal reality. The mirror does not show it and it takes some level of masochism to indulge in such trying empirical exercises as a metaphorical splitting of the self into components. We are not used to this kind of beauty being put on display since it involves a certain amount of anxiety. In any case, it comes across much more neutrally in anatomy textbooks. Maybe that is the reason so many surgeons are total cynics.
It is not particularly flattering and is likely inconvenient for beings of the highest intelligence (at least from the human point of view) to recognize that in reality our body is made up of four types of particles that have existed in the universe since its very beginning. 99 per cent of our body consists of atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Moreover, not a single atom in us is unique, since they each have their individual history, spanning billions of years, connected with the rest of nature and the universe. Given that each of us consists of around 100 000 times more atoms than the total number of humans ever to walk this planet—altogether around 7, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000—there is an enormous chance that each of us has inherited an atom carrying in itself the experience of a dog, a flea, an ash-tree, a weed, a cockroach, a saint or a murderer. That everything is one, and everything is interconnected. As we inhale and exhale, a constant exchange of atoms takes place. Maybe, if each of us understood this information, not as mere words or facts, but truly realized it, the world would not be balancing on the edge as it is presently…
Heidegger noted that anxiety sometimes urges you to go out and look for your real self. You are not necessarily aware of it taking place, it can happen quite suddenly. The skin can be abruptly torn open, uprooting everything underneath it. Our presuppositions and layers of identity that exist within the framework of said presuppositions can be taken apart just like that. Everything then comes cascading down like water through a floodgate. It’s not something you can put a bandaid on or suture with absorbable stitches. The normal gentle and tested course of action will not work here—the wound will not close. The destructive force requires brutal application of duct tape—wrapping the world in scotch tape. It will never be the same again.
Clothing is the outer shell covering the biggest organ of the human body, hence, it is often called “the second skin”. It protects, keeps warm, aesthetically beautifies or, on the contrary, deliberately highlights the seemingly concealable. Clothing is a comprehensive language, more powerful than words. And our clothes, too, have subcutaneous layers. Seams, stitches, darts, linings, folds, quiltings, waddings, interfacings, upholstery, thread, fibres—all those many layers make up the total exterior or body of a garment.
The original impetus for this exhibition, which focuses mainly on three relief sculptures of fabric, is Rolands Pēterkops’ childhood memories. Just like many of us, his family home also had a clothing rack in the hallway always stacked to the brim with coats and jackets for all seasons of family members of all generations. As a child, he loved crawling under the thick heap of coats and listening to the sound around him change. He was diving into this curious subcutaneous world — a pilled wool sleeve brushes against you and gives you a spooky feeling; a silk lining with a fraying edge to pick at either to relieve the said spooky tension or simply out of curiosity; a pocket treasuring a previous season’s used handkerchief; seams and folds gathering dust. And of course, the must-have item in any Soviet-era wardrobe—the duster—a type of trenchcoat whose name has unclear origins yet quite accurately embodies the dusty atmosphere of its time.
Although deconstruction and attempts to redesign the internal layers into the external layers of garments has become a common practice in fashion since the legendary appearance of the Japanese designers on the Paris runways in the 1980s, such an approach in design has until very recently been something more analogous to a couple of psychotherapy sessions. A step deeper into the world of the “shadow self”, albeit keeping a relatively safe distance. We don’t get dressed to be more naked, after all. Clothing is our public skin.
Likely, that is why humans have always been fascinated by the mythology surrounding the chameleon, able to adapt by changing its colour to match the surroundings. Its skin serves as camouflage. Although science has proven that in the deepest sense the chameleon is completely naked, its skin is a mirror of its moods, reactions to the external environment, its drives and turmoils. The chameleon’s brain sends a signal to chromatophores—cells that produce a range of colours—and that, in turn, changes the colour of the animal’s “facade”. If the chameleon is irate, it is dark, and as soon as it relaxes, its skin turns green. The chameleon is like an open book. And we all potentially have chameleon atoms in us, just like chameleons have ours. In the current age, we see these atoms manifest themselves. Not always in pleasant ways. Nonetheless, acknowledging their existence in us can help us survive. For everything is and will continue to be one. The inner and the outer, and the perpetual tension created by the fragile, quasi-utopian equilibrium between the two.
MAREUNROL`S employ the relief sculptures of fabric as an instrument for introspective dialogue, a form of artistic communication that spatially connects the “facade” with the “lining”, exposing their reciprocity and—through observation and presence—facilitating the encounter between the viewer and the mirror image of their own hypodermal layers.
Una Meistare
