Aware: Royal Academy of the Arts Art Fashion Identity

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London College of Fashion Aware: Royal Academy of the Arts Art Fashion Identity

International Symposium

London College of Fashion is delighted London College of Fashion is committed This two-day symposium is exemplary to be a partner in this exciting and to extending the influence of fashion, of the relationship that the college challenging exhibition, and to be able be it economically, socially or politically, continuously strives to develop between to provide contributions from some of and we explore fashion in many its own internally mandated activities the college’s leading researchers, artists contexts. This exhibition encapsulates and programs with broader discourses and designers. vital characteristics of today’s fashion and practices within the fields of art and education, and it supports my belief that design. With the recent appointment The relationship between art and fashion has the potential to bring about of London College of Fashion Curator, fashion, through conceptual and practical social change when considered in contexts Magdalene Keaney, and significant expression, is at the London College of of identity, individuality, technology and developments to the Fashion Space Fashion’s core. We were immensely proud the environment. Gallery at London College of Fashion to endorse the development of ‘Aware’ we now intend to increase public from its original concept by Lucy Orta, We see this in the work of Professor awareness of how fashion has, is, and London College of Fashion Professor of Helen Storey, whose ‘Wonderland’ project will continue to permeate new territories. Art, Fashion and Environment, together brings together art and science to find real The opportunity to work with the Royal with curator Gabi Scardi. Additionally, solutions for a more sustainable world, Academy in presenting ‘Aware’ has been we are privileged to support two new and in the exploration of craftsmanship, instrumental to our vision for this, and I commissions by Yinka Shonibare and patronage and historical practice in the look forward to future collaborations. Hussein Chalayan, the creation of which work of Professor Dai Rees. will directly connect to our teaching and Professor Frances Corner OBE research activity. Head of London College of Fashion

Image Credit: Acconci Studio Umbruffla, 2005–10 Silk, chiffon, radiant film, cotton thread, boning, 114.3 x 152.4 x 114.3 cm

Professor Lucy Orta

The exhibition and symposium Aware: Along with a group of similarly Art Fashion Identity has evolved out of disheartened designers I began a deep necessity to expand the definition searching for alternative means of and role that clothing plays within our expressing the deep changes that were society. It has taken almost twenty years taking place in society. of questioning and research (and a lot of frustration) finally to bring together a We once again find ourselves in a time series of fellow artists and designers who where the pressures of economy, the share the same dedication to agitating social tensions brought about by wars the definition of fashion and demonstrate abroad and the stringent austerity that clothing is a powerful instrument for policies at home are forcing us to communication that we have a tendency reassess our positions and values. It is to choose, use and discard too arbitrarily. time once again to look at our ability to incite transformation at the individual The questions I began posing were and collective level, to seek alternate generated by an uncomfortable doubt interpretations that allow us to openly in my successful career as a young manifest change – fashion can be a fashion designer and, not withstanding, powerful channel of expression that linked directly to the economic decline operates across the social, political and throughout the early 1990s. The first Gulf ecological spheres of society. War, followed swiftly by a stock market crash as well as mass unemployment I hope the non-exhaustive selection leading to general social unrest, stood in of artists and their work that we are stark contrast to the superfluous fashion presenting in the exhibition and the we had been observing in the extravagant symposium will provoke us, even just catwalk shows. a little, to look and think about clothing differently. Monday 6th December Saint Mary’s Church London, W1H 1PQ

Nearest tube: International Symposium Edgeware Road / Marylebone

17:30 – 16:00 The Skin Tellers Losi drew from the tales of whale’s Registration being toured across Europe as circus-like The artistic research of Claudia Losi attractions to stage her own tour, which 18:00 – 18:30 focuses on the relationship between began at Viafarini in Milan (2004) The Skin Tellers human beings and nature, on travel as continued to a square in Lerici, Liguria, exploration and an opportunity to gain two museums in the cities of Guayaquil A performance by Claudia Losi, in knowledge. Experience-based practices and Quito in Ecuador, the cloister collaboration with Antonio Marras are central to this work and are explored beside the Marino Marini Museum through a range of different disciplines, in Florence, and the Ikon Gallery in 18:30 – 20:00 from the natural sciences to geography Birmingham (2008). Rountable discussion and cartography, literature and poetry. Through the use of embroidery and In the process she recorded the Chaired by Christopher Breward with other techniques, the artist reproduces memories, narratives and communities Jonathan Watkins, Mark Henderson, the rhythms of transformation of lichen, through which the whale traveled in a Philip Hoare, Tom Baker, Carol Alayne, glaciers and geological maps, sewing series of workshops and interventions. Shaun Cole a material link between nature and To conclude the project, Claudia Losi human action. decided to enact a rite of passage and transformation: Les Funerailles de la The Skin Tellers serves as the latest Baleine (Whale Funeral) took place Champagne & Canapes in the Rootstein incarnation of Losi’s Balena Project, during a 24-hour performance, on Hopkins Gallery c/o The National which she began formally in 2004 with 16/17 October 2010, in an old textile Media Museum (Speakers Only) the creation of a 1:1 scale model of mill near Biella. With the participation a fin whale, made from men’s suiting of fashion designer Antonio Marras fabric. The project had developed the whale has been transformed into out of Losi’s childhood memories of a number of suit jackets, embroidered searching for whale fossils near her with the stories the whale collected hometown of Piacenza, and developed along its journey. The jackets will into an exploration of deeper historical, be on display as part of the GSK geological, and anthropological Contemporary exhibition at the Royal dimensions of man’s longtime fascination Academy. They will also be animated in with this great mammal of the sea. the context of an evening performance at St. Mary’s Church in London’s Marylebone district, worn by actors who will in turn read from the stories generated throughout the project as part of a live sound composition.

Photographs: Courtesy of Claudia Losi Tuesday 7th December London College of Fashion 20 John Princes Street, W1G 0BJ

International Symposium Afternoon Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus

10:00 – 10:10 Memory and Trauma 16:30 – 17:30 Opening Address by Frances Corner Roundtable w/Questions & Response 14:00 – 14:25 10:10 – 10:20 Presentation by Gabi Scardi 17:30 Opening Address by the Curators of Closing Address by Lucy Orta the GSK Contemporary Exhibition 14:25 – 14:45 Marie-Ange Guilleminot Politics and Intervention 14:45 – 15:05 Drinks and Refreshments 10:20 – 10:45 Maja Bajevic Presentation by Dr. Anthony Downey 18:30 Performance and Display Opening of the Fashion Space Gallery 10:45 – 11:10 Vito Acconci 15:05 – 15:25 Presentation by Kaat Debo 11:10 – 11:40 Nasan Tur 15:25 – 15:45 Jessica Bugg 11:40 – 12:230 Roundtable w/ Question & Response 15:45 – 16:05 Alicia Framis Media and Manipulation

12:30 – 13:00 Film by eX De Medici, introduced 16:05 – 16:30 by Magdalene Keaney Tea

13: 00 – 14:00 Lunch

eX de Medici/Vexed Generation runs from: 08 December 2010 – 29 January 2011 Monday – Friday: 10am – 6pm Saturday 10am – 4pm Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus Speakers

Vito Acconci Maja Bajevic Christopher Breward (b. New York, United States) (b. Sarajevo, Bosnia) (b. Bristol, United Kingdom)

Vito Acconci’s works across a variety of Bajevic studied at École des Beaux-Arts in Christopher Breward is currently the disciplines, including film and video, sound, Paris. Focusing on a variety socio-political Head of the Research Department at the sculpture, performance, photography issues, Bajevic uses performance, video V&A Museum. He has held lecturing and architecture. In the 1970’s Acconci’s and installation pieces to investigate both posts in the History of Art and Design at radical practice helped shift art from personal and universal identity. Focusing Manchester Metropolitan University and object to interaction and he turned gallery on the themes migration and identity, the Royal College of Art. Before working & museum viewers into participants and the marginalisation of the alien and a at the V&A he was Head of Research at inhabitants of the space. He founded the contradiction between the local and the London College of Fashion, University Acconci Studio in the 1980’s with a group global, her work interrogates the political of the Arts, London, where he still holds of architects based in Brooklyn New York. and economic structures of our Age. Her a Visiting Professorship. Christopher sits They draw from computer logic and from video work Double Bubble (2001) focused on on the Editorial Boards of the journals mathematical and biological models and the misuse of religion in modern society, ‘Fashion Theory’ and the ‘Journal of their approach to architecture explores while another video, Back in Black (2003), Design History’. He is an active member ‘occasions for activity’, in which space stems from the artist’s personal experience on numerous key committees, including becomes fluid, changeable and portable. of war and violence. Her work in the GSK the AHRC Peer Review Panel for Visual Their work reinterprets poetry & geometry, contemporary, entitled Dressed Up, is an Arts and Media; the Pasold Research computer-scripting & sentence-structure, early piece for which she stitched printed Fund; the Advisory Board of the Raphael narrative & biology within the framework fabric maps of the former Yugoslavia into Samuel Centre for Metropolitan Studies. of a critical and creative practice. Recent the inside of her jacket, literally carrying Christopher’s personal research interests projects include a man-made island in the tragic story of her birth country with lie in the field of fashion history and he Graz, which function as a theater, café, and her on her back. It becomes a reflection on has published widely on fashion’s relation playground; a soft-shelled concept store for the uprooting, trauma and loss experienced to masculinity, metropolitan cultures and United Bamboo in Tokyo; the Wave-a-Wall through war, and our inalienable human concepts of modernity. He is currently W 8th Street Subway Station in New York. attachment to our place of birth. co-curating the V&A’s major 2012 Exhibition ‘British Design 1948-2012.’

Carol Alayne Tom Baker (b. United States, lives in United Kingdom) (b. United Kingdom) Jessica Bugg

Carol Alayne is acknowledged as one of the Tom Baker specialises in both traditional Jessica Bugg is Academic Coordinator and finest women’s bespoke tailors in the UK and avant-garde bespoke tailoring. He Director of Programmes for Performance today. Leaving her banking career in 1988, trained for five years at Hardy Aimes, until at London College of Fashion. Jessica’s she moved from the US to London in order 1996, when the founded Sir Tom Baker practice-led research explores the to pursue her passion for tailoring. Shortly in Soho, London. It was on Savile Row interface of fashion design with fine afterwards she joined the Savile Row that he was taught to cut and fit in the art and performance methodology and community where she quickly developed a most classical English way. This traditional practice. Her work employs innovative reputation for working across disciplines; training combined with natural flair has put design methods that are informed by tailoring, haute couture and field him at the forefront of bespoke tailoring incffffterdisciplinary practice in relation to sports. She has collaborated with designers today. His ability and willingness to work the body. She has an interest in contextual such as Georgina Godley and Jose Levy, closely with each and every customer has communication methods, which take into and has been connected with many of earned him a loyal following, attracting account the complexity of communication the foremost tailoring houses including television personalities, musicians, actors, between designer, wearer and viewer of Chanel, Huntsman, Gieves & Hawkes, captains of the industry and politicians to conceptual fashion in specific contexts. Welsh & Jefferies, Hardy Amies and the door. These include Ant & Dec, For the GSK Contemporary Jessica has Holland & Holland. In 2008 she relocated Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Rhys Ifans, collaborated with Hussein Chalayan on a to Spitalfields, London in order to set up David Hasselhoff, The Prodigy and new body of work. Tailoring for Women, a specialist bespoke Sir Menzies Campbell to name but a few. service for women. She is a regular public speaker, features widely in the press and Whilst offering a house style based on the Philip Hoare media, and recently appeared alongside London Cut (sharp shoulder/accentuated (b. United Kingdom) Jaeger in the V&A’s special seminar devoted waist/clean trouser line), Tom Baker is well to the evolution of women’s tailoring. known for his unique design interpretations Philip Hoare is an English writer from and flexibility. Southampton. His books include Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant;(1990); Noel Coward: A Biography (1995), Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Consipiracy and the First World War; (1997), and Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital (2001), England’s Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia, and Leviathan, or the Whale, which won the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Speakers

Shaun Cole Dr. Anthony Downey eX de Medici (b. United Kingdom) (b. United Kingdom) (b. Australia)

Shaun Cole is a curator, writer and lecturer, Anthony Downey is the Director of the eX de Medici is an artist and world- based at the London College of Fashion. Masters Programme in Contemporary Art renowned tattooist. She lives and works He was formerly Head of Contemporary at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. He in Canberra, Australia. Her Practice is Programmes at the Victoria and Albert received his PhD from Goldsmiths College multi disciplinary and since the 1970s has Museum in London. He has curated in 2006 and sits on the Editorial Board of included sound performance, installation, numerous exhibitions including Fashion Third Text. He lectures on globalization, painting, watercolour, drawing and on Paper (1997), Dressing the Male (1999) postcolonial theory, the Middle East and photography. She has been artist-in- and Black British Style (2004-5) as well North Africa, and the relationship between residence at the CSIRO Entomology as the innovative Days of Record series art, politics, aesthetics and ethics. Anthony Division’s Australian National Collection, documenting personal identity. Shaun has published essays and articles in Aperture, and in 2009 was appointed as an Official writes and lectures on men’s fashion and Third Text, Nka, Brumaria, Fillip, Canvas, Australian War Artist, commissioned by the gay style. His publications include Art Monthly and Apollo, and contributed Australian War Memorial. ‘Don We Now Our Gay Apparel’: Gay chapters to Conspiracy Dwellings: Surveillance Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century in Contemporary Art (2010), Different Sames: de Medici’s work has been featured in (2000) and Dialogue: Relationships in New Perspectives in Contemporary Iranian Art numerous solo shows and is found in the Graphic Design (2005). He is currently (2009), Iran Inside Out (2009), Understanding collections of the National Gallery of writing a history of men’s underwear. Art Works (2009), Art and Patronage in the Near Australia, The Australian National and Middle East (2011), Representing Islam: Portrait Gallery, The Australian War Memorial, The National Gallery of Comparative Perspectives (2010), Theories and Kaat Debo Victoria and the Queensland Art Gallery. Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook (b. Belgium) of Artist’s Writings (revised ed. 2011), and Her work is the focus of a solo Cultural Theory (2011). He has recently Is the current director of the MoMu exhibition at the Fashion Space Gallery featured in a number of documentaries Fashion Museum in Antwerp. She from 7 December to 29 January. began her career at the Momu in 2001 for the BBC and CNN and, as part of as a scientific researcher in 2001, swiftly the Bruges Cultural project Horizons, moving into a curatorial position. She is contributed to Iran Beyond its Borders (1960- Alicia Framis distinguished for her research work, her 2010). He is currently writing a book on (b. Barcelona, Spain) close collaboration with contemporary aesthetics, ethics, and politics (forthcoming, Belgian designers. Along with her 2012) and developing a web-based research Alicia Framis studied Fine Arts at the directorship at the museum, she has also database on visual culture in the Middle Barcelona University and at École des filled the position of editor-in-chief at East and North Africa . beaux-Arts in Paris. In 2002 she created A Magazine, a biannual magazine, which ‘Anti -Dog’ clothing, a collection comprising commissions a different designer to of 23 bullet-resistant and stab-proof dresses curate each issue. Of note is her recent Claudia Losi which addressed the victimization of collaboration with curator Bob Verhelst on (b. Italy, 1971) women. Other notable works include Remix the Maison Martin Margiela 20 exhibition, Buildings (2000), which combined buildings which recently exhibited at Somerset Claudia Losi studied at the Academy and concepts usually kept separated, and House, and Stephen Jones at MoMu. of Fine Arts in Bologna and received Lost Astronaut (2009), a performance piece a degree in Foreign Languages and commenting on the role of women in the Literature from the University of Bologna contemporary world. Framis combines Mark Henderson in 1998. Her work often illustrates her different cultures in projects exploring the interest in the natural sciences as well as social components of the contemporary city. As Chief Excecutive of Gieves & Hawkes the historical and anthropological aspects Her work is about living between different and Chairman of Savile Row Bespoke, of the environment. Losi also explores cultural heritages and the shift from one to Mark Henderson is a key purveyor and the concept of story-telling through art, the other, but also about the deep feelings of attendant of London’s bespoke tailoring often using projects to link and create new fear linked to tensions between intercultural tradition. Henderson has been at Gieves & communities of human interaction. dynamics, and the difficult relationships Hawkes for 13 years, previously working at between communities. Mary Quant and Alfred Dunhill. He was instrumental in the establishment of Savile Row Bespoke in 2004, an organization Magdalene Keaney dedicated to the protection and promotion of the Savile Row tailoring community, Magdalene Keaney is a curator and writer. which has been the center of British She has written widely on photography tailoring since 1785. and her first book, World’s Top Photographers: Fashion and Advertising was published by RotoVision in 2007. Keaney was Associate Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London, where she curated Irving Penn Portraits (2010). She is currently Curator and Creative Director of the Fashion Space Gallery at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts. Marie-Ange Guilleminot Nasan Tur Jonathan Watkins (b. France) (b. Germany) Since 1999, Jonathan Watkins has been Marie-Ange Guilleminot graduated from Nasan Tur is a German artist who Director of Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Villa Arson, Nice in 1981, and works in a currently lives and works in Berlin. He is a Previously he worked in London, as variety of media including film, sculpture prolific young artist who works extensively Curator of the Serpentine Gallery and and performance. Her particpative work with ideas of displacement and identity. Director of Chisenhale Gallery. Watkins has been the focus of major international His artworks include Human Behaviours, was Artistic Director of the 11th Biennale exhibitions: such ‘Paravent de Munster’ at the randomly placed slide-projectors show of Sydney and as guest Curator for Munster Sculpture and her contribution to thousands of slides in four-second intervals Quotidiana (1999-2000) at Castello di ‘Future, Present, Past’ at the Venice Bieannle, - hundreds of pictures showing passers- Rivoli, Turin; Europarte (1997), 47th Venice both in 1997. At the Ikon Gallery she by taken in different European cities, Biennale; Milano Europa (2000), Palazzo created The Transformation Parlour, which was rigorously organized into categories; and di Triennale, Milan; Facts of Life (2001), based on the Chinese and Japanese craft of Backpacks: Speaker, Cooking, Demonstration an exhibition of contemporary Japanese origami. Developed out of Guilleminot’s Sabotage, Fan etc. that consist of an omnium art at the Hayward Gallery, London; and visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial gatherum of objects that suggest a function Days Like These (2003), Tate Triennial, Museum in 1998 she was profoundly for each backpack. During exhibitions the London. He was on the curatorial team moved by the story of a Japanese girl who backpacks constructions are placed at the for the Shanghai Biennale (2006), Sharjah was a victim of the Hiroshima A-bomb. disposal of the audience to utilize. Biennial (2007), and Palestinian Biennial During a lengthy, fatal illness caused by (2007). Watkins has written extensively exposure to radiation, she made origami on contemporary art, and recently was birds to embody her prayers for peace. Gabi Scardi the author of a Phaidon monograph For Aware: Art Fashion Identity, (b. Italy) on the Japanese artist On Kawara. In Guilleminot exhibits White Clothes from August-September 2008, the Ikon Gallery Hiroshima inspired by the photographs of Co-curator of the GSK Contemporary invited Losi to stage workshops around victim’s clothing she discovered in a book exhibition at the Royal Academy of the Balena Project with pupils at Erdington Hall by photographer Hiromi Tsuchida. Further Arts, Gabi is an independent curator Primary School to produce drawings of research led her to study the clothing, and art critic with a strong interest in whales, which were then used by local take patterns and re-create each of the multidisciplinary practices. She is a residents, in a temporary tailor’s shop garments in white cloth. Replicating the Curatorial Counsellor for MAXXI, on Erdington High Street, as patterns to fabric of the period, each garment has Museum of the 21st Century Arts, in Rome produce hundreds of small fabric whales been painstakingly reproduced with its and co-curates CECAC, The European that formed part of her exhibition. flaws and hand stitching of the seamstress Course for Contemporary Art Curators, in who made them for a child or worker. Milan. Between 2005 and 2009 she was Contemporary Art Advisor to the Province Leanne Wierzba of Milan. In addition to her curatorial (b. Canada, 1981) Lucy Orta practice, Gabi Scardi teaches modules (b. UK, 1966) on contemporary art and public art in Leanne Wierzba is currently pursuing an various Italian Institutions and is a regular MA History of Design at the Royal College Lucy Orta is Professor of Art Fashion contributor to national and international of Art, London. Having received formal and the Environment and co-curator of magazines and newspapers. training in fashion design and applied Aware: Art Fashion Identity. Lucy’s work arts from the California College of Arts & bridges mobility, clothing and architecture Crafts, she went on to work as a fashion investigating their common social factors designer and writer in Paris, and then such as communication and identity. She London. Her writing on art, fashion and builds on the relationship fashion has to design has been published by numerous the body and the collective potential it journals including Under the Influence, has to bring about positive change. The Flux Magazine, SOMA, Dazed & Confused most emblematic strands of her practice and Dazed Digital. Her current research are ‘Refuge Wear’, ‘Body Architecture’ explores the influence of technology on and ‘Nexus Architecture’, as well as creative production, design processes and creating a new body of work ‘Urban Life the culture of industry within late-twentieth Guards’ which reflects on the body as a century fashion. metaphorical supportive structure. Her new ‘Anticipation Accessories’, will worn by the security guards during the GSK Contemporary exhibition. Lucy Orta’s collaborative research encompasses broader sustainability issues tackling the ecological and the social through projects such as: ‘OrtaWater’; ‘70 x 7 The Meal’ and ‘Antarctic Village’. Her work on the subject of biodiversity is currently the focus of an important monograph exhibition ‘Amazonia’, at the Natural History Museum London from 6 October to 12 December. Credits

The Fashion Space Gallery at London College of Fashion is a contemporary exhibition space in central London presenting a regularly changing programme engaging with global fashion, design, photography and installation. eX de Medici/Vexed Generation runs from: 08 December 2010–29 January 2011 Monday–Friday: 10am–6pm Saturday 10am–4pm Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus