Sir William the Explorer

Sir William the Explorer is a new character that i have developed for the StoreFront, objects of desire project at the Lansdowne Centre. Sir William, played by actor/dancer Billy Marchenski appeared on July 14 looking to trade magic beans for gold. He asked people where he could find large trees to rebuild the mast of his ship as he has heard of the giant Douglas Fir trees on the West Coast that are big enough to make a large mast for a ship. His coat is made from Magnolia leaves and the braided trim is a Mongolian rope made from goat …

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Mobile Garden at the Mall

The Mobile Garden Dress made 2 appearances during my StoreFront, objects of desire installation at the Lansdowne Centre in Richmond. The dress was animated by Nita Bowerman, who invited people to water the edibles in her skirt, talk gardening and then make a salad. If the shopping centre is the new community church then camping in a dress covered in edible plants is a great way to bring people together and bring some genuine connection to the retail experience.  

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StoreFront, objects of desire

StoreFront, objects of desire was  an installation at the Lansdowne Shopping Center in Richmond BC that blurred the line between consumer culture and art by displaying ephemeral objects in a retail window setting. Here dresses made from live flowers and shoes made of leaves are presented on mannequins as if for sale. By presenting simulated fashion articles within an existent shopping experience the viewer was confronted with having to negotiate the space between desire and ownership. I was on site at the mall periodically preening and adding new elements to the window displays. There were also public interventions in the shopping …

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Nomadik in the Desert

The Nomadik Harvest Dress was part of the Flatlanders and Surface Dwellers exhibition at 516 Arts in Albuquerque New Mexico. Curator Lea Anderson invited me to come down and give a talk about my work and so I took the opportunity to also have the Ms Cornucopia, this time embodied by Korie Tatum, cook up a dish of Cholla cactus buds. I met with local native plant forager, Amy White, who took me out to gather plants, which was the highlight of my trip. We also went out to the desert to take some photos of the dress in it’s …

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Nomadik in the Desert

The Nomadik Harvest Dress was part of the Flatlanders and Surface Dwellers exhibition at 516 Arts in Albuquerque New Mexico. Curator Lea Anderson invited me to come down and give a talk about my work and so I took the opportunity to also have the Ms Cornucopia, this time embodied by Korie Tatum, cook up a dish of Cholla cactus buds. I met with local native plant forager, Amy White, who took me out to gather plants, which was the highlight of my trip. We also went out to the desert to take some photos of the dress in it’s natural habitat. Special thanks to Rhiannon Mercer …

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Tara Dress

For Earth Day 2013 I made a new dress, which began a whole new investigation into my Weedrobes series, namely working with the movement of the armature created for the garment. As often happens with this work ,I do not have much time to contemplate scenarios because the plants are in bloom and the window of opportunity is short. I did realize that the dress covered with fresh material and the dance with the armature where 2 separate projects, so I concentrated on making the fresh dress and the movement piece will come sometime in the future. The concept for the …

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The Nomadik Harvest Dress

The Nomadik Harvest Dress was completed during a 2 week art residency at the McMichael Art Gallery in June 2012 in collaboration with the Fashionality Exhibition. This wearable architecture is the second piece in the Urban Foragers {house of eco drifters} series, which began with the Mobile Garden Dress. The design is based on the yurts I experienced while in Mongolia. The skirt is created from a folding bamboo fence and Willow struts sewn into a wool waistband.  The traditional felt outer covering is replaced with crazy quilt of woollen sweaters, which have been shrunken and dyed. The covering contains …

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La Robe Jardin Mobile

La Robe Jardin Mobile (The Mobile Garden Dress) was in Montreal this spring for the Rendez-vous Horticole garden show at the Montreal Botanical Garden. Dji Haché animated the dress for 3 days and her enthusiasm was infectious with the thousands of people who came through and watered her plants and tasted her herbs. These were selected and donated by Josée Archambault  of Les Aromes du Petit Coteau. The month of May was also the time of nightly demonstrations on the streets of Montreal, which became known as Les Casseroles. We heard about lawyers actually protesting so we took La Robe Jardin Mobile …

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FASHIONALITY

FASHIONALITY, dress and identity in Contemporary Canadian Art Fashionality is a new exhibition curated by Julia Pine at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection Gallery in Kleinburg Ontario. This exhibit features 23 Canadian artists who work with the theme of the garment. The show runs from May 5th to September 03, 2012 and the opening reception is on Sunday May 13. I will be showing photos of my IceShifts and my Weedrobes series, plus a new video on my work. I will also be doing an art residency at the McMichael from June 17th to July 1st. There i will create a …

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Laurel Suffragette

In September 2011, Laurel Suffragette was created  and conceived as a character coming from the late Victorian age, who had been active in the emancipation of women and the garment industry of her day, who had fought for reforms and safety in the manufacture area.  Miss Laurel Green-Fairfashion was curious to see how the future had turned out, so she  took a stroll down Robsonstrasse, Vancouver’s fashion district, to see what shoppers had to say regarding eco-fashion. The interventions varied from long one on one conversations, to people ignoring her because they suspected she was selling something, to having her picture taken with babies, to engaging …

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The Mobile Garden Dress

The Mobile Garden Dress is a self-sustaining garden and shelter for the new urban nomad, complete with pots of edible plants and a hoop skirt which converts into a tent at night. This garment is 100% compostable and recyclable. It is contrusted from natural materials such as Willow, basketry reed, grasses and leaves. The hoop skirt is covered in pots containing live edible plants such as herbs and vegetables. The dress advocates for an autonomous and democratic urban lifestyle based on self-sufficiency. During the day, Madame Jardin interacts with people and engages them in conversations about plants, gardens and composting. At night she …

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