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subscribe with RSSTwo intriguing questions that Denitza Uzunova and Yolana Limman came up with to captivate people’s attention to their first collaborative exhibition as Central Saint Martins M.A students.
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| Image 1 and 2 - Denitza Uzunova, 3 & 4- Yolana Limman. (Click any image to enlarge it) | |
Entering the gallery, one immediately becomes a part of a shared environment between art and audience, generated by Denitza’s installation, inviting humor, play, spontaneity and chance. As a visitor you are carried forward, not merely by the mechanical impulse of curiosity, but by the pleasurable activity of the journey itself. All you see around you are pairs of old shoes that are donated from different places and people, which have their own story. Her work is the perfect imaginative form in which a state of mind has clothed itself - you can see parts of people’s thoughts and desires all around the gallery, and maybe even recognise your own.
By trying the shoes, you step in 'art's' shoes and walk in them for an evening. This enables you to go beyond what preconceptions of 'art', to experience what it really is, what it thinks and feels.
Since, nowadays, we "connect" to art mainly through technological means, the shoes are tied together, not with shoe laces, but with LAN cables, telephone wires and TV cables - signifying how "disconnected" people are from experiencing. The project begins as an installation, but becomes a performance, at which point the audience changes, and the subject clearly becomes the participants, revealing themselves through their work. I was fascinated with the work's uncanny playfulness, and it's ability to generate a dialogue between art and audience.
As I walked down the stairs, I was greeted with the Clash of Desire (CoD) designer, Yolana Limman. She has turned the lower gallery space into a cultural exploration journey of the forgotten Indonesian traditional performance art, Wayang Orang Bharata. With eyes glowing, Yolana explained her CoD concept and mission. Through this project, she wants to engage the younger generation with traditional cultures by translating the hidden messages into design elements in her clothing design.
Yolana walked me through her designs and explained that each design has its own story and character, while emphasising that it is not about the fashion but about the cultural stories in it. Looking at different angles of the Wayang Orang Bharata from the character, the dance movement and sound, the stories to the soul of the performers, she explored engaging and interactive ways to intrigue people to explore further, including structuring a whole tier dress with wires that can be shaped accordingly and a colourful xylophone set sewn on a dress to mimic the Indonesian traditional music sound. Exploring the stories further on her website, I was fascinated with her interpretation of the complex stories into visual design elements.
Yolana commented on Tuesday, 27 October