costume design and dressmaking
Dreaming of Melusine,
16.12.2021-2.1.2022, Myymälä 2, Helsinki
"When working on the pieces my whole body capitulates to the dialogue with the material. In the beginning the sketches are figures and motions in my head which take shape once the actual creative process begins. My hands conjure the forms in a material dimension in which movement flows and halts simultaneously. I aim to evoke bodily impulse, mental expansion and insight in the spectator."
Melusine is a mythological character pertaining to European, in particular French folklore since Medieval times. It was believed to be half woman, half serpent. In the most commonly known myth, Melusine was a noblewoman who transformed into her serpent form after the sun set on Saturdays. She kept this a secret from her husband, but once discovered she was released from her bodily form and let free to roam as spirit in the deep, dark woods.
"Awakening", leftover hand painted cotton and silk, polyester, 2021
"Dreaming of Melusine", polyester, aluminium, 2021
"Silence", recycled polyester strips,
aluminium, 2021
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My work is born from the desire to explore the costume as a space through design language as well as historical context. The costume is an entity, which creates its own realities for the body to inhabit. Through my work on costumes I research the sensory effects of the spaces they form and how they influence our senses through density, hapticity and dimensions. I ponder the corporeal and its relation to the costume space’s apertures and closures; the physical channeling into the costume’s communication and mental states.
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Innovative Costume of the 21'st Century - Next Generation
group exhibition
17.6.-2.10.2019, State Historical Museum, Bakhrushin Museum, Moscow
Body Opaque, paperdress, 2018
”Body Opaque”, my first installation costume plunges into the question of where does the body end and where does the costume begin? In the installation I wanted to blur the lines of the costume space creating an image of movement that's frozen in time yet still flowing. By shaping the installation into the form of the body I wanted to emphazice holistic body's importance in movement. The costume is constructed by freehand papercutting; ancient japanese art form. In the process my hand cut hundreds of cuts on the paper and the wood underneath it thus creating permanent imprit and memory of the process on wooden surface. When in the process of making it often feels as if the process itself is a performance of it own. The only viewer being the material I work with since I can't perceive myself from the outside. In the process my hands move constantly; sometimes repeating the same movement hundreds maybe thousands of times. I surrender and let myself be led. By bodyshaping the costume I also wanted to refer to the idea of the body that is the place of our experiences and for the performance. ”The body is the horizon where the world makes itself meaningful” (Maurice Merleau-Ponty).
”Body Opaque” was exhibited in Innovative Costume of 21st Century- exhibition 2019 in Moscow introducing innovative designers from all over the world. After the exhibition I gave the costume for Moscow based experimental sound artist Anna Mikhailova to be used in her own artistic work any way she chooses. This act crystallizes the idea of a costume that has an agency of it's own and creates altogether new dialogue that continues out there in the world of art.