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UNSEX: Exhibition-Making as a Methodological Approach to Interpret Contemporary Gender-Neutral Fashion in Museums and Gallery Spaces
Get PDFAccording to theorist Elizabeth Wilson, fashion “defines and redefines the gender boundary” (Wilson, 2007, p.117). Correspondingly, academics Joanne Entwistle (2015) and Judith Roof (2016) further consider how contemporary fashion reshapes that boundary, whilst engaging with nonbinary gender identities. Moreover, the links between fashion and genders are negotiated by leading fashion media, such as Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily, and by practitioners in fashion and museums, including designers Rad Hourani and Neil Grotzinger, and curators Maria Luisa Frisa (2018, 2020) and Michelle Finamore (2019), among others.
The demographic data around nonbinary genders are inconclusive; notably, in the UK, gender identity was first addressed during the 2021 Census. However, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network estimate that up to 25% of the global population may not identify with the gender binary (Bauer et al., 2017). Whereas gender-neutrality is apparent in contemporary western fashion, few fashion exhibitions have engaged critically with the topic.
With this practice-based research, comprising a written thesis and a practical exhibition proposal, I aim to contribute to the field of fashion exhibition-making by developing strategies to interpret contemporary gender-neutral fashion within museums and galleries. In my thesis I provide an analytical definition of gender-neutral fashion and identify designers and objects, which synthesize a fragmentary history of gendered archetypes and their gender-neutral reinterpretations within fashion. In my practical proposal I consider existing exhibition-making conventions, such as plinths and mannequins, and I identify the following new strategies towards negotiating the relationships between historic gendering and contemporary genderneutrality: topography, mapping, orientation, augmentation, disruption, and materiality.
Finally, a central objective within this practice-based thesis is to demonstrate the symbiosis of exhibition-making theory and practice. Thus, the graphic integration of fashion imagery, architectural representation and text comprises as significant a contribution to the research as the body of text and provides a new template for practice-based research on fashion exhibition-making
The Case for Minor Gestures
Get PDFThis paper lays out the groundwork for a concept we define as minor gestures within design education. Moving away from a conversation centered around decolonization—a term, we argue, that has been co-opted to become a placeholder for equality, diversity, and inclusion, and tick-box exercises within academic institutions— we assert that minor gestures create the conditions for meaningful conversations on what it actually means to move towards decolonizing design education. Using examples from our own pedagogical practices, we sketch out and outline a proposition for minor gestures as theory-in-the-making, or an incomplete pathway towards meaningful, structural change
'You Make Me Sick’: An interview with Puss Johnson and Steve Eagles of Satan’s Cats
Get PDFFormed in Evesham, Worcestershire, in January 1977, Satan’s Rats released three superb but commercially unsuccessful singles in a period of a little more than eighteen months before splitting up. Guitarist Steve Eagles, drummer Olly Harrison and bassist Dave Sparrow then teamed up with Wendy Wu (Wendy Yates) to form The Photos, a new wave group that achieved a major label record deal and went on to a measure of chart success in the early 1980s. The band has recently reformed with a new guest vocalist, Puss Johnson, under the moniker Satan’s Cats. Steve Eagles and Puss Johnson discuss punk histories, locality, punk and everyday sexism with Russ Bestley
Dreams of Safety - Experimental Pandemic Documentary
No full textPresentation of Dreams of Safety video series in context of healthcare and documentary
Making Sense of Responsibility: A Semio-Ethic Perspective on TikTok’s Algorithmic Pluralism
Get PDFUtilizing the data collected from 40 in-depth interviews, this study explores: How do users perceive social media platforms’ responsibility in designing algorithms? What do users perceive as diverse or similar in the content generated by algorithmic recommendation systems? The analysis discusses and evaluates the tension between (a) how the platform’s algorithm feeds users similar videos that they highly appreciate and, inversely, (b) how the recommendation of similar videos might limit the diversity of content to which the user is exposed. The analysis adopts a semio-ethic framework to understand why algorithmic platforms like TikTok are perceived to be so efficient in promoting an apparent perception of inclusivity while deliberately erasing alterity and promoting universal sameness. Although videos recommended by TikTok might appear to satisfy computational criteria of diversity, the outcome masks the absence of algorithmic pluralism. The algorithm generates socially desirable videos to allow users to feel comfortable in their in-group. In other words, recommended videos perpetuate a digital form of conformism in a conscious attempt to create the illusion of a more plural community. Advancing the study of algorithmic pluralism is therefore crucial to evaluate the extent to which plurality is understood by users, and what assumptions and ethics underpin the cultures that foster algorithmic recommendation design
Mexico Filter
No full textCollaborative video shot in Sotuta, Yucatan, Mexico and online in Secondlife. Styling advice in world from Smoopa, Nibby, Siren and Banana
Traces: Stories of Migration
Get PDFThe publication Traces: Stories of Migration brings together the creative outcomes of a two-year research project undertaken by Professor Lucy Orta. It was published to coincide with the final exhibitions at the Nunnery Gallery (2 June – 27 August 2023) and LCF, UAL East Bank (2 October 2023 – 19 January 2024).
Traces: Stories of Migration explores migration histories that are woven into the history and fabric of east London. The project draws the experiences of communities affected by migration and the memories accumulated as people journey from one place to another. Between 2021 and 2023, Orta led a programme of community engagement workshops with eighty residents across the London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets. The workshops were centred around storytelling and textile heritage, using the mediums of cloth and stitch as a common language through which multigenerational migration histories take form. Sixty-seven participants created personal ‘Story Cloths' and Lucy Orta realised textile portraits of each person. This 'Portrait Gallery' challenges the convention of portraiture using cloth, stitch, beadwork, fabric patterns and appliqué to reflect the unique characteristics of people involved. The portraits are expressive and inclusive, recognising a myriad of trajectories through life and the diversity of peoples’ lived experiences. Essays by Camilla Palestra and Caroline Stevenson reflect on the historic context for the project situating this within the distinct migrant heritage of East London, and the methodologies employed to generate outcomes that were presented in two conclusive exhibitions
The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre of the First World War
No full textThe first comprehensive guide to British theatre's engagement with the First World War over the last century, providing accessible and lively coverage of theatre's role in the representation and remembrance of events, focussing on topics including regionality, politics, popular performance, Shakespeare, class, race and gender
Voronoi Halo
No full textVoronoi Halo endeavours to visualise the invisible, to reveal something hidden, or impossible to see. Dark matter makes up most of our universe, its effects can be observed, but it has proven impossible to directly detect. Joint curiosity around its nature form the basis of a number of conversations between the astronomer, Rita Tojeiro and artist, Alistair McClymont. Tojeiro’s astrophysics research focuses on large spectroscopic galaxy redshift surveys to understand the content, geometry and expansion of the Universe. A project began with McClymont experimenting with sections of a telescope that Tojeiro worked with to help understand dark matter. From this starting point a discussion around patterns and sculptural forms has resulted in the creation of objects and images, the goal being to create an analogy of dark matter that can be directly experienced.
A series of inflated paper and resin forms, paired with cyanotype photogram prints, show a group of galaxies and point towards the existence of dark matter. Each sculptural form shows an area of space around a real galaxy and its dark matter halo. Every form has been directly imaged as a cyanotype photogram. 16 forms and 16 cyanotypes together show a filament of dark matter deep within the universe.
McClymont created software that could explore a set of galaxies that had been drilled into an aluminium plate used within a telescope that created the largest map of galaxies in the universe. The holes in the plate allowed scientists to isolate each galaxy and collect its light. The software McClymont developed can be seen here:
voronoi-halo.alistairmcclymont.com/
Dark matter is often explored using Voronoi diagrams, a mathematical system that divides areas into cells representing areas nearest to each galaxy. McClymont used this visual system to find patterns and groups of galaxies, revealing filaments of dark matter. A collection of Voronoi cells were cut out in paper, each cell with a hole cut out in the position of the galaxy it contained. These shapes were then inflated through the hole and were hardened with resin. Every form was placed on sheets of paper coated with cyanotype chemicals and exposed to light, creating a photogram. The paper and resin forms are placed in front of the cyanotypes in the formation of a single filament of dark matter