Fashions and Embodiment: a workshop with Celia Pym and Emma Hoette

The Fashions and Embodiment workshop invites participants to explore relationship between fashion and movement through the acts of wearing and repairing. Using existing garments the workshop will activate the tacit knowledge we each employ in the daily act of dressing and tending to our clothes.

The physical, material and symbolic dimensions of wearing and mending clothing will act as tools to reflect on the fluid and dynamic relationships that constitute fashion. This practice-led approach aims to draw attention to the very complex reality of fashion production. It will encourage critical reflection on the role of the wearer within the fashion system both through making and conversing and create the space and flexibility for the imagining of innovative and inclusive modes of ‘doing’ and ‘being’ fashion.

The workshop will be facilitated by Celia Pym (artist) and Emma Hoette (movement artist/designer). Celia and Emma will guide the visual experiments, discussions and documentation during the day. During the workshop the group will collectively produce objects, images and film – a selection of which will be included in the Goldsmiths Design Festival.

Please bring at least one garment that needs to be mended in some way to work with during the day. You may want to bring several! Tools and materials will be provided (fabric pieces, scissors, needles, thread, yarn, paper, drawing/writing materials) however participants are welcome to bring materials they enjoy using. If the weather is kind to us we may work outside on the college green so bring a hat!

This workshop has been initiated in collaboration with the Goldsmiths Fashion Research Unit and the MA Fashion Programme. It is kindly supported by Goldsmiths Annual Fund

Celia Pym is an artist who has been exploring mending since 2007 with extensive experience of small everyday holes, at heels, elbows, in pockets as well as working on more dramatic damage, from water, animal nesting and moths issues. Celia’s interests are around the evidence of damage and being a darning detective – through repair you look closely at where garments and cloth have got worn down and thin. In clothing this wearing is often to do with use and how the body moves. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Center and Pump House Gallery, London. Celia was one of five makers selected for the Crafts Council’s Parallel Practices project in late 2014. For this she worked with Dr Richard Wingate, Head of Anatomy at Kings College London, exploring ‘mending’ in anatomy and the relationships between care and caretaking in textile repair and studying anatomy. She is currently a visiting lecturer for textiles at the Royal College of Art.

Emma Hoette is a movement artist whose work is a playful overlapping of dance, performance, fine arts, and fashion. Her process is cyclical; the dance speaks to the other visual mediums and design, which in turn speak to and informs the dance. As such her practice is hybrid. She uses body just like the fabric in clothing, the camera that captures images or the pencil used to draw. She performed for The Dutch National Opera, Brandin Steffensen and ThreeASFOUR among others. Emma has designed for Anne Zuerner, Yaa Samar Dance Theater, Alexandra Beller and Ishmael Houston Jones. Emma has taught and tutored at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and Parsons, The New School, NYC.

Image Credit: Fuen Chin (MA Fashion 2016)