3 ROOMS - Object, Design and The Body - Exhibition Installation - Singapore Part 3

It has taken me a silly long time to get these images posted but better late than never! So these are installations shots from the exhibition I participated in Singapore, 3 ROOMS - OBJECT, DESIGN + THE BODY at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore. The gallery also produced a very smart catalogue, please email me at info@elizabethdelfs.com if you would like to have one, or I can email you a PDF version.

Exhibition co-curators Anne Farren and Emily Wills invited three Western Australian designer/artists to contribute, all of whom are young creatives whom "represent a young genre of makers who are reexamining the nature of the fashion object and its presentation". In addition to myself, Jocelyn Tan And Alistair Yiap were selected. Students from Curtin University and LASALLE College of the Arts were then invited to respond to our work, and asked to consider the "process of fashion design by adapting traditional methods of garment construction and engaging in methods of investigation to move fashion away from existing ties with garment production". Below are the installation shots from the key designers as well as a selection of student work which I was particularly impressed by.

"As fashion is being presented internationally in galleries, museums and in public spaces as much as on the runway, it also has the potential to have greater impact conceptually that is also reflected on itself, and on people, bodies, identities, ethics, aesthetics and notions of beauty - the very stuff, in fact, that fashion is really made of".

- Hazel Clark, Conceptual Fashion in Fashion and Art by Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas (eds) London, Berg, as refernced in the catalogue 3 ROOMS - OBJECT, DESIGN + THE BODY

Imogene Spencer - Subconscious Skin 

Curtin University, Western Australia

This series by Curtin student Imogene was stunning - she used dispersal dyes painted onto transfer to create the pools of colours on a synthetic material, and then manually etched lace pattern work through the garment using a soldering iron (a burn out process), around and through the print. The uneven hems echo the print pattern.

Fabric detail

The photographic documentation was very professional and high quality also!

Lauren Sims - Micro

Curtin University, Western Australia

Heat etched lace work integrated with a organic pleating, all done by hand. This work is such a great example of how textile manipulation is key to the design outcome, which so many commercial designers forget about.The combination creates a sophisticated sculptural outcome and abject beauty.

Ariana Davis - Atanga

Curtin University, Western Australia

Jocelyn Tan - Key Designer 

Western Australia

The above three students work is a response to designer Jocelyn Tans' installation. Tans' work "investigates the space between garment and accessory and the slippages between retail and exhibition display". Her work is often interactive - in its passive state, each piece is a beautiful object, and when activated by the wearer, there is often a cheeky function and interplay. A necklace which is also a pencil box; a cap, to cover the head, is covered in hair; or an accessory which also is a makeup applicator. Objects are also unisex and suggest "altered ways of making / wearing / using".

Celene Bridge - Princess and the Goblin

Curtin University

Objects hand carved from balsam wood.

Alistair Yiap - Key Designer

Western Australia

Shinead Gecas - Arcana

Curtin University, Western Australia

And then my installation.......

Exhibition and opening night.......

Imogen, Lauren and Alistair

Singapore Exhibition + Buildings - Part 2

I spent some time in Singapore a couple of weeks ago for an exhibition a the Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibition was curated by Anne Farren from Curtin University and Emily Wills from LASALLE College of the Arts. The project was an extension of an exhibition I participated in a couple of years ago at the WA Museum called Beyond Garment, which was a survey of West Australian artists and designers working between fashion, object, art and the body. The exhibition in Singapore took three artists and designers from Beyond Garment and invited students from LASALLE College and Curtin University to respond to one artist of their choices work, and subsequently a selection of the student work was exhibited along with ours.

Installing at the gallery

LASALLE College of Arts, Singapore

Such bright young things! Students from Curtin University

Parkview 

I stayed in an apartment which over looked this building and one evening I went over to check it out. The building is called Parkview but is known colloquially as Gotham City. Parkview building is one of the most expensive buildings in the downtown area of Singapore and despite it's gothic art deco aesthetic, construction was only completed 2002. The level of ornamentation and attention to detail is phenomenal. So much pressed tin, stone, marble and velvet pile!

The garden in the courtyard

The building houses three embassies and on the bottom floor resides the Divine Wine bar, which is incredible. You can see in the photo below the wine chiller which stretches from the first floor to the third floor. If you look closely you can see the Wine Fairy being winched up on a remote controlled harness. She runs up there and fetches the wine as you order it. Seriously. I can't believe I ever accepted having my wine served to me in any other fashion. 

The band!

ArtScience Museum, Singapore

Down at the Marina Bay I also visited the ArtScience Museum which as you can see is inspired by the lotus flower. The museum has three levels of exhibition spaces, the outside s more impressed than being inside it, but it makes a unique exhibition space. The interior has some interesting potential for architectural interventions or site specific work but it is very much used as a "gallery". I did see however a good show by some Magnum photographers.