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2017 - Germany
Ritual clothing that explores the bond between mankind and nature.
Bondage Cape is an introspective creation that sprouted as a result of self-exploration and interest to store experiences and memories.
Its roots are the culture I have grown up with, the pagan rituals that were practised once upon a time in the land of my birth and those that I have discovered in England. The colours are based on those of the sky during the sunset and the sunrise, the time I am reminded that everything has a beginning and an end - the circle of life. Painted with tree branches, leaves, flowers and petals from Germany, each side of the fabric was incited during two significant pagan summer celebrations, implementing different manual printing techniques. All four natural elements (fire, water, air and earth) were present during the colouration process. The power of day and night was imbibed in the very essence of the textile. In consideration of my star sign being Gemini and the tendency to observe the nature of duality in everything, this project came to represent that.
Sun-Moon / Cold-Warm / Light-Darkness / Ephemeral-Eternal / Limitation-Freedom / Presence-Absence / Dynamic-Static / Life-Death
Working further with these concepts - the painted material is hand sewn into a wearable piece of art that carries the message that we are bonded to our nature (to the flora, fauna, mankind and ourselves). The ritualistic approach evolved the material into a ceremonial cape. Considering the language of form and how the costume interacts with its surroundings, I have implemented the notion of a fixed posture to the architecture of my creation. Thus, the relationship between the body, its movement and the environment is dramatized. The back of the cape is visually divided, and the vertical length of the material has equally distributed holes through which the rope for the bondage can be fed. The form of the clothing and its wearer are modelled by the one applying the bondages, culminating with a unique and dynamic web of movement restriction that metamorphoses the wearer into a symbolic cocoon, a living piece of art that signifies the human interaction with, and not only with, its kind.
My fascination for bioluminescence scored its way in the creation with the use of UV light and fluorescent colours.
The hypnotic beauty of human body can be experienced through the feral and eerie appearance of the Bondage Cape
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
- Dylan Thomas
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. The force that drives the water through the rocks Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams Turns mine to wax. And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks. The hand that whirls the water in the pool Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind Hauls my shroud sail. And I am dumb to tell the hanging man How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime. The lips of time leech to the fountain head; Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood Shall calm her sores. And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind How time has ticked a heaven round the stars. And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
OUTER SIDE -> SUN
Blue - Cyanotype.
Nature imprinted on fabric during the Summer Solstice 2017.
(5 hours of exposure to sunlight)
INNER SIDE -> MOON
Pink, Orange, Red - Monotype.
Nature imprinted on fabric from the Midsummer Night / Sânziene Eve / Saint John the Baptist during New Super Moon Phase + continued
(5 nights of intensive work)
STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography: Nikola Weigleova / Bondage: Liam Phoenix / Assistance: LoOny Visions
x2 Ultraviolet Lamps + Fluorescent body paint (drawn and sprayed)
OUTSIDE PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography: Nikola Weigleova / Assistance: LoOny Visions
Location: Burg Hochhaus, Donau-Ries, Bavaria.
Circular Reflector
360 ° Photography
Bondage: Nicholas Hadziannis.
Location: London College of Communication, London University of Arts.
Exhibited at LIMINAL - 20-24 June 2018.