A traditional difference between fashion and art was once found in their utility and base ontology, but with the rapid trajectory of hybrid, designer-artists in the production-consumption circuit of fashion, the creative landscape has been transfigured into an outcome based, non-commercial enterprise. Examining this hybrid development in the sphere of creative practice, Fashion & Performance: Materiality, Meaning, Media is a cross-fertilisation of fashion and performance that contributes to the repositioning of artist designers within the circuit of culture. 

Curator Jessica Bugg talks us through fashion, hybridity and the exhibition that is bringing together some of the most seminal artists in practice both locally and internationally at RMIT Design Hub for the 2015 VAMFF Cultural Program Project Series.

The proposal to exhibit fashion garments in a gallery setting seems to be decidedly sculptural yet also quite consciously considered. Can you talk us through how you navigated the design concept of the exhibition and the choice of Design Hub as a gallery venue?

JB: The exhibition Fashion & Performance: Materiality, Meaning, Media was first developed for the Arnhem Mode Biennale in 2013, and at that stage we talked about how we could capture the performative through exhibition and realised that actually in the space that we had at that time, it would have taken a lot more engagement, and a lot more time and work with material objects to produce something that we were really happy with that still retained a true sense of the performance. At that stage we worked just with film and that worked for that context, but what we really wanted to do was to take this concept forward and to work with both the objects and the films to create much more of a sense of animation within space, and to leave space for audiences to perceive, view and experience through their own embodied experience of materials and dress. 

We talked to the Design Hub, as they have such wonderful galleries, and the prospect of using such an almost intimidating space was quite challenge but it added this very performative sense to the space. So we’ve worked in a slightly site specific way with the environment and our main issue has mostly been working with how you cam make films not just look like a room of screens. We’ve been trying to perceive this idea of how you animate and how you activate the actual screens within the space, and how the films and the different types of media in the show speak to the material objects and how that conversation can be engaged with. 

The genre-defying praxis of these artists is being seen to reimagine the boundaries of fashion with experimental and often unmarketable work that prioritises creation over consumption. Can you tell us a little about the discourse that surrounds it?

JB: Since the early 2000’s there has been a rapid shift within the subject of fashion and a much more inter-disciplinary and increasingly collaborative approach to producing fashion. I think the internet and media has a lot to do with that because it’s enabled the processes of designers to become uncovered. What I think has happened is that people are now looking at the potential of process and thinking about how process itself can become consumed in different ways. So as much as all of the artists in this show, we’re looking at them from a non commercial perspective. I think there is still a strong sense of consumption through the engagement with the performative and also the fact that people can have an experience. The experience of fashion in itself a form of consumption.

Does the over arching concept of fashion prioritise retail or aesthetic experience? Does this concern change the nature of what defines this work as fashion?

JB: There are different types of works within fashion, and the systems of fashion have developed considerably. However, in this exhibition, the artists are varied and have many different backgrounds. Some have trained in fashion design, some in fine art and are very interdisciplinary, but what we’re focusing on is people who use materials and the body and contemporary aesthetic.  Aesthetic itself has been very important in our selection of the work, as it’s about an aesthetic communication but it’s also about embodied communication. So we’ve been very careful to select some of the most seminal people to exhibit. 

Although the cross-fertilisation of art and fashion is in no way a new phenomenon, does this hybridity transform the way that fashion and art is both appreciated and consumed? How is it that we discern the purpose and cultural function of the two respectively?

JB: I think the debates of fashion and art probably underpin this, but I suppose what this exhibition speaks to rather is the question of what is performance art, as opposed to art. The objects themselves are not art objects to be viewed in their own right, but they’re viewed in the interchange and the intersection of the other works, viewed as lived objects so they have the marks of being worn and being performed. I don’t see these pieces as art objects or artefacts, but rather as the relationship with the different aspects that communicate being the overall performance and the work concept.

Currently we’re seeing a lot of hybrid commercial retail spaces, designed by architects to have the semblance of a gallery exhibition. Do you believe that fashion being designed by artists, uniting the sensibilities of fashion is translatable within dominant retail culture? 

JB: Gallery spaces are becoming more commercial and are increasingly branded and sell products, whereas fashion spaces are becoming increasingly more conceptually led and are unpacking narratives and telling stories because audiences of all sorts demand an experience and they want more than just the garment.  So I think yes, there is potential, but performance itself hasn’t been explored so much within the fashion space.

But I think in terms of the store space, or the fashion space, I think has more potential to engage with performance because it is the scenographic experience, from the moment you enter the store you’re immersed in the space where you are engaging with fantasy, stories and dreams. You’re drawing connections between visual, experiential and your own lived experience of what that garment might mean in your life. So I think there is a lot of potential for that to be extended.

Is it that fashion is an all encompassing umbrella term but within this state of contemporary hybridity is there a developing need to move towards more definitive sub classifications?

JB: I think now that we are in such a time of cross-fertilisation, collaboration and an openness of creative practice, that if we focus on process and practice, I question if we really need to coin these practices? I struggle myself with the terms fashion, clothing and dress, battling with how we navigate those words because they are so loaded. I think it is time to start to understand that fashion designers, artists and performance artists are working in different spaces at different times. Maybe through this we need to start thinking about a more transient practice that works across different spatial contexts, but is grounded in our various trainings and experiences.

Fashion & Performance: Materiality, Meaning, Media at RMIT Design Hub opens on March 5th and will run until April 2nd as part of the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival Cultural Program’s Project Series 2015. 

For more information about the exhibition, click here.

Image Credit: Perceiving Dress: Optical Laces 2014, Designer/ art director: Jessica Bugg, Photographer: Rene Lindel