Concealed/Revealed
2023
fabric, paper documents, cotton thread, original 1950's dresses, wooden and metal coat hangers
Detail Images
A slip dress lives as a mediating layer between our under and outer wear. A thin and delicate layer which keeps the modesty of the wearer upheld. Traditionally this dress is to be covered up with yet another layer, the outer dress, which obscures and distracts the viewer from what lies beneath.
This final layer of clothing is like a second skin, an outer layer which provides the wearer with both physical and psychological protection.
Concealed/Revealed uses clothing as a metaphor for our defence mechanisms. The outer dress acts as a second skin which obscures the deeper, more personal aspects of our lives from being seen; which in this contexts lives within the confines of the slip dress.
This work uses paper to construct the slip dress, and considers the fragile materiality of that material and the weight of importance it holds within the western society. Can a person be summarised to a single sheet of text on paper? Should we allow it to hold such power over us.
This act of obscuring is not always voluntary and in certain cases the autonomy of the wearer can be shifted, the perspective and control of the individual stripped away and slipped into the pocket of another. Forced to assimilate to the social standard at that current time; dress this way, act that way, ect.
Concealed/Revealed seeks to visualise these two different forms of perspective and control of obscuring the self/human life and how it impacts an individual.
