05/12/2021
A constant outgrowing of our shells, shed selves and an honouring of our emotional bodies -
All I wanna do is create these wearable sculptures working with the metaphor of the wound; the wound that has the stigma of opening and spoiling the body, the wound where we meet our vulnerability either compassionately or where we other parts of ourselves. The wound is where we tend to not want to look, what we don’t want to face. Most of my life I avoided getting my (emotional) wounds touched. I took detours, I distorted myself and I hid my softness behind shell-like personalities. My shell, my armour that I believed I needed to protect myself was actually holding back my power, my lust for a full life and was the reason for a longing for connection I felt I could not have.
This top is made out of wound healing bandages deriving their grafting abilities from the fermented shells and exoskeletons of insects. Insects, from an anthropo-centered position, sometimes seen as inferior, hide in their shells the ability to stop the bleeding of our wounds. Who would have thought that the exoskeleton–the armour, the gear for separation, for keeping us apart, for keeping our softest parts from being touched, broken down to pieces–contains the medicine, the means to instantly close the wound. Under our daily armour, we all carry wounds waiting for the balm of connection to what we deem other or inferior in ourselves. When we break the armour we can start to heal through getting to know our emotional bodies.
In ritual-like sessions, I want to cast your torsos, exploring your emotional bodies with fabrics coated in the wound healing insect skin, metaphorically and subconsciously reconnecting those parts u othered, integrating what u deemed inferior into a new u.
📷 caught this nice angle ty
