‘Visibility Coat’
Wearable Textile
Screen Print and Natural Dye
The Visibility Cloak functions as a wearable with a surveillance function. As the wearer is covered by the coat, the phone camera pocket in the front serves to reverse the roles of the visible nature of self in the public eye. Elements of printing and dye have to used in aesthetic inspiration of skin texture and tone. The act of showing and covering ones skin is the dichotomy of visible and invisible. This garment is the embodiment of my personal experience being visible in the public eye and the anxieties that come with it. The story reads of when I spilt coffee whilst on my way to uni one morning all over my pants and a person laughing at the stains on my pants. There is a paradox between wanting to be shown and wanting to be hidden. From the clothing I wear it appears I want to “show off” or be observed, but in contradiction I feel immense anxiety being watched in public. Clothing and style is my personal comfort but I hate how visible in makes me, I almost want to be invisible. the 'Cloat' (cloak/coat) is a depiction of wanting to be hidden but also a a notion opulence as kings and generals will wear cloaks and coats to show their high position. TA pocket sits on the front that allows my iPhone to be placed inside with a peep hole that records from my coat, reversing the role of surveillance. The public eye no longer surveils me, as they become the surveilled. The garment is made form recycled table/drop cloth and dyed with tea and coffee in conjunction to my experience. The patterns are influenced by my own observation of skin patterns and texture. The patchwork is the reorientation of disorientation. The inside describes my recapitulation of my experience with the laughing lady.
‘Masking Ristual’
Multimedia, Interactive Textile performance,
Heat moulded thermoplastic material, paint marker
The mask is an omnipresent wearable within almost every culture within history. The mask en- ables us to disguise, to perform, and to protect. For me, the mask is invisible. ‘Masking Ritual’ is
a textile based performance piece that demonstrates a literal interpretation of my issues of social masking with being on the autism spectrum. I often feel as if socialisation is artificially constructed by elements of me, to create new personas to conform to my surroundings. I have constructed a wall hanging made through the technique of thermoplastics, using pvc and a scale plaster mould of my face. The PVC thus has been melted, reshapen and mouled to the exact shape of my face. The act of thermoplastics in itself parallels my own conceptual moulding in the external world. I often feel lost with all the masks I hold, that I have now lost sight of my own ontology. The aspect of the form being a wall hanging coincides with traditional creations of wall hangings such as tapestries, were created to document events of time. The wall hanging is a physical visualisation of my emotion and personal experience, as the soft fading of transparency hides my own visible self. The performance depicts me going from several different masks in a searching manner to reflect my experience. Each mask has different illustrations exhibiting different facial features, stitches and motifs of my work. Although the work speaks mostly of a deep personal experience, I also feel as if the task of masking doesn’t just hold singularity to myself; I fear we all are hiding behind a veil of masks and the individuals within our society are constantly conforming the norms of everyday.
‘Medicate’
‘Medicate’
Multimedia. Ceramic sculpture and video
To medicate is to heal.
Medicate is a multimedia video performance artwork about the process of taking care of one’s mental health. The mind is often dissociated for the corporeal body yet it is something that affects the way you interact with the world and the vessel you behold. I have chosen to create three enlarged replications of antidepressants I have taken over the course of my life; these include Lexapro, Zoloft and Pristiq. Through my performance the subject (myself) is placed in a surreal and disorienting atmosphere, where I ‘mother’ my pills. The subject is shown wearing a white gown with a Rorschach printed on it as well as her face. Through the course of the video the subject is shown restlessly caring for her children as she swaps from different pills. Her emotions are of constant change where one minute she is smiling and laughing but the next she is immensely overwhelmed. This performance parallels my own experience with mania, as well as the constant changing of medication in order to help this. The visual and auditory nature of this performance is one that suggests disorientation and confusion, with animated patterns in the background and a layered and looped track of soft singing; I have chosen this to reflect the side effects of being medicated as it often makes you feel dizzy and forgetful.