THE HOUSE OF HIGH FASHION AND LOW SELF ESTEEM, 2023

haute cotoure garments, pain killers, strings, foam mat for kids, dolls, battery

For my masters work I worked with a harsh life story that a top model trusted and shared with me. 2 years ago I met a top model who gave me all her haute couture garments, because her 30 year older EX ruined them by cutting them, spilling sources and paints all over them. She left me these clothes and left for India to become a yoga instructor. I fell into a deep investigation in the fashion industry. I interviewed other models, 4 female and one male model, watched movies and read articles about the toxic industry. I was confronted about the social constructs that we as a society have built and lived with although they are dysfunctional, but we have accepted to live with these constructs for many decades now. I made this space into a kid’s room, I built a fort out of the fashion garments, and inside of these clothes I sewed in and painted quotes from many spiritual leaders for a reference to the top model who gave me these clothes and accessories. The interviews I did with other models, I used for a video work, I asked people with regional accents to voice them, because 1. it was sensitive information and 2. A lot of people who work as models come from very small or unknown places. I manage to make these clothes stand using blue and red strings – these colors are also the ones used by fashion designers when they start to sketch the clothes they want to create. For some of artworks in my MA work I used materials with socially low value to enrich the environment of exhibition space by objects representing the poor condition provided by the business of child labour in low income locations around the World. The form and aesthetics of these objects changed throughout the process, as I had never worked with my chosen materials before, it gave me a space for creative experiments and some failed attempts. Without a doubt I took on the challenge of failing multiple times before reaching my end goal, as my chosen materials were desperately needed in the terms of the context of my idea.

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