Transfashional
Post-Interdisciplinary Lexicon
19.02.20196.30 pm
London College of Fashion
20 John Princes StreetLondon
INTRODUCTION
José Teunissen, Dean of the School of Design and Technology at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London
SPEAKERS
_ Lucy Orta, University of the Arts London, Chair of Art in the Environment
_ Naomi Filmer, Senior Tutor, Fashion Artefact, London College of Fashion
_ Ute Neuber, Professor, Textile - Free, applied and experimental art design, University of Applied Arts, Vienna
_ Ulrik Martin Larsen, Senior Lecturer/Researcher in Fashion Design, The Swedish School of Textiles
_ Simona Segre Reinach, Associate professor of Fashion Studies,Bologna University
_ Robert Pludra, Deputy Head, Faculty of Design, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
MODERATING
_ Dobrila Denegri, curator of “Transfashional”
_ José Teunissen, Dean of the School of Design and Technology at London College of Fashion, UAL
London College of Fashion, UAL is proud to partner with University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Fashion Studies, University of Bologna, University of Borås, Swedish School of Textiles, and Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw to deliver this exciting international project.
“Transfashional” is an ongoing research platform initiated in 2016/17 with the intention of highlighting practices which seek to expand disciplinary boundaries, merging fashion with visual and performing arts, design, architecture and other creative fields. Combining the prefix “trans” with the adjective “fashional”, this newly coined term sets out to initiate a challenge to move beyond fashion as we know it. Moreover, it questions the existing way of addressing practices which thrive in the liminal zone between different disciplines by proposing a vocabulary of terms useful for defining and understanding this experimental, critical and innovative approaches.
What started as the “Arts&Crafts” revolution more than a hundred years ago, brought us today into the condition of total disciplinary porosity, where it becomes very difficult to distinguish between what is “art” and what is fashion or design. We might consider this condition as “post-interdisciplinary” - a condition in which it is necessary to generate new categories and a new lexicon adequate to address innovative practices and productions.
“Transfashional” asked exemplary artists and fashion practitioners to outline terms inherent to their interdisciplinary researches. For example, Lucy Orta, who works across disciplines such as fashion, art and architecture, will speak about “co-creation” which is a large part of her socially-committed and environmentally aware approach. Ute Neuber will speak and perform, addressing her “shape-shifting” and “form-finding” experiments with garments transformed into interactive modular devices. Naomi Filmer and Ulrik Martin Larsenwill explore the question of body and movement and how they inform the creation of highly conceptual and experimental forms of fashion and accessories. They will address differences between “dressing” and “wearing” and reflect if we are entering into an era in which clothes are more important than fashion.
The intervention of Simona Segre Reinachwill highlight historical and theoretical references significant for understanding the above-mentioned experimental fashion-related practices, while Robert Pludrawill address conceptual and methodological similarities and differences between speculative design and speculative fashion.
Speakers
Professor José Teunissen is Dean of the School of Design and Technology at London College of Fashion, UAL, and Professor of Fashion Theory. Besides this she works as a curator. Her latest exhibition State of Fashion Searching for the New Luxury took place in Arnhem 1 June- 23 July 2018 . José is currently a board member of the Dutch Creative Industries Council in the Netherlands. From 2002- 2016 she held a Professorship in Fashion Theory at ArtEZ where she established the Centre of Expertise Future Makers, a centre dedicated to new making processes in fashion and design. José previously worked as a journalist for several Dutch newspapers and Dutch broadcast television, and was curator Fashion and Costume at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (1998-2006). José has co-edited many books including: Fashion and Imagination, 2009; The Art of Fashion, 2009; Couturegraphique, 2013;; The Future of Fashion is Now, 2014; and Everything but Clothes, 2015; and realised many exhibitions including; The Art of Fashion, 2009; Couturegraphique, 2013; The Future of Fashion is Now, 2014; and Everything but Clothes, 2015. Three Eyes, 2016.
At UAL she is currently leading (PI) on 3 European projects: Edu4Ftech and Art Cherie (Erasmus+) and DeFINE (Cosme).
Naomi Filmer teaches at London College of Fashion, Central Saint Martins and HEAD Geneva as well as exhibiting internationally and designing for international design houses. Naomi’s work challenges the boundaries of what defines jewellery, focusing on the relationship between body, object and the absence of an object. After completing a masters degree in Metalwork and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art, Naomi built her reputation through catwalk collaborations with designers such as Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Anne Valerie Hash. More recently her work features in international Fashion and Applied Art exhibitions, noted for her sculptural forms and experimental use of materials (ice, chocolate, glass, rubber).
Ulrik Martin Larsen, Senior Lecturer/Researcher in Fashion Design, The Swedish School of Textiles. Since receiving his MA degree in Fashion Design from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design in 2008, Ulrik has been working in a number of fields connected to fashion and art. Operating at the cross section where performing arts and fashion meet with an emphasis on body, object and movement. Collaborations are at the very core of Ulrik's artistic practice and this cross disciplinary and collaborative approach also informed his PhD thesis "Dressing/Wearing" which was published in 2016. Ulrik is also part of the Swiss/Danish artist duo PUTPUT and has exhibited widely with individual and collaborative work.
Ute Neuber (born in 1963) was trained as a goldsmith and hat-maker before she studied productdesign focusing on metal products.Since 1989 she has worked as an artist and researcher, developing further her artwork on various parallel levels in – what she calls – her long-term projects. These projects create a multifaceted foundation for her exhibitions, performances, lectures and workshops. As a lecturer at the Textiles Department focused on free, applied and experimental design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, she consistently explores and develops further the potentiality of open learning environments and participatorial and collaborative practices.
Lucy Orta’s (UAL Chair of Art in the Environment) practice as an artist, focuses on social and ecological issues, employing a diversity of media including drawing, sculpture, installation, couture, photography, video and performance. She often works with communities to create large-scale public projects and exhibits objects resulting from her research in major museums internationally.
Robert Pludra is industrial designer and Deputy Head of the Faculty of Design at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He runs his own studio focused on product, social and exhibition design as well as leading design workshops. Robert graduated from the Faculty of Design of the ASP in Warsaw in 2010. In 2013 he wrote his PhD thesis in social design and in 2016 became a Deputy Dean. He is a co-leader of Fundamentals of Design Course (PP2) and co-ordinator of research and development projects. He is a Member of the Association of Industrial Designers (associated in BEDA) and has participated in more than fifty exhibitions at key design festivals in Milan, London, Paris, Berlin or Tokyo. Currently working on research and development projects, audio-visual installations, electronic devices, watches and cycle, rail and automotive design.
Simona Segre Reinach is Associate Professor of Fashion Studies at Bologna University and is also involved in fashion curation studies. She has written extensively on fashion from a global perspective. She sits on the editorial boards of many academic journals as “Fashion Theory”, “Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty”, “The International Journal of Fashion Studies”, “Dress Cultures” (Bloomsbury), “Fashion in Process” (Mandragora), “Anthem Studies in Fashion”, “Dress and Visual Culture”. She is Scientific Director of fashion projects in the Masters course “Design and Technology for Fashion Communication”. (Bologna), and Editor of “Zonemoda Journal”. Recent books include “Exhibit!” (with Luca Marchetti) 2017, “Fashion in Multiple Chinas. Chinese Styles in the Transglobal Landscape”, (with Wessie Ling) 2018. Recent exhibitions include “Jungle. The Imagery of Animals in Fashion” (Torino Venaria Reale) 2017.
Moderators
Dobrila Denegri is an art historian and curator. She has been the Artistic Director of nKA / ICA (Belgrade) since 2002; an independent cultural association based in Belgrade. From 2002 until 2008 she was curator at the MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. From 2007 until 2009 she lectured at “La Sapienza” University in Rome and since 2011 she lectures at Polimoda in Florence. Between 2010 and 2015 she was Artistic Director of Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun (Poland). Her activity as a curator and writer began in the 1990s; she has curated numerous group and solo exhibitions including Marina Abramovic, Thomas Bayrle, Michal Rovner, Alfredo Jaar, Gustav Metzger, Ernesto Neto, Thomas Saraceno, as well as workshops, panels, and lectures for public and private institutions internationally.
“Transfashional” was presented in 2017 at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London, Centre of Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw,MQ - MuseumsQuartier in Viennain and Kalmar Art Museum in Sweden (2018).
The second edition of “Transfashional” is organised by the University of Applied Arts Vienna, London College of Fashion, UAL, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Fashion Studies, University of Bologna, Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, and with the support of the Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture, Constitution and Media, Austria.
