Parade Créole / Eigenkleider
Garments produced after Anna Muthesius' concept of Eigenkleider, likening Muthesius' ideal form to Frantz Fanon's White Masks. With reference to Das Eigenkleid der Frau and Black Skin, White Masks.
Installation views of prototypes for Eigenkleider. One, larger, object features coloured machine-embroidery, after drawings by Felisha Carenage which reference of Caribbean resistance, inheritance and memory culture. (Sloops, Kunuku houses, cruise ship palm trees, machetes and choppers).
Four textile objects, custom-made jumpsuits for the artist and three other Trinidadian women who are negotiating europeanised spaces in their personal and professional lives, feature tailored-in 'blue notes' and whitework embroidery. (Whitework references marriage trousseaux- household textiles which are prepared by family members to equip future brides for their new domestic realms.)
The objects, in their exhibition contexts, are often installed alongside drawings, reading materials, and archived garments. Drawing Breath: Notes on Parade Créole is a documentation of the first wave of exhibitions and events, which took place between 2021 and 2022, in Kiel, Hamburg and Göttingen.
Ayesha
Research into one of four Eigenkleider, produced for Dr. Ayesha Prout. Coloured pencil drawings on architectural paper, referencing maquettes, blueprints and intimate partner violence.
The drawings are usually mounted on a custom frame from MOKIT, a modular system which guides the research aesthetics of the Drawing Breath* exhibition in its entirety.
Ayesha, 2021 / Architectural Paper, Pencil, Ash Wood, Nylon, Cotton. Dimensions variable.
*formerly called Parade Créole
Shanya / Archive
Archive created to play with gendered themes of autonomy in Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks, using Shanya Greene's label which she had designed for herself. Custom frame by Mokit Tools.
All Photos on this page: Svetlana Grigorieva
The Problem of the Page
Research Aesthetics in the original Parade Créole exhibition. Sketchbooks, reference works and note-taking in a custom display system. All publications displayed with cosmetic gloves for perusal.
(1) Print of a digital Scan of Anna Muthesius' Das Eigenkleid der Frau, ca. 130 A4 sheets of recycled paper, bound with a medium bulldog clip. Annotated in coloured pencil by the artist, 2020-21.
(2) First edition of When Creole and Spanish Collide, Brill, 2021. Opened at a collaborative chapter between Felisha Bahadur, Dr. Glenda Alicia Leung (ed.) and Ria Ramjohn. Featuring texts and colour reprints of two illustrations by Felisha Bahadur, one of which is on the cover of the volume.
These illustrations are: Whirlwinds of Being and The Creature Preparing. Each in A3 format, chalk on pastel paper, from 2020.
(3) The artist's Pandemic Sketchbook, open to a coloured-pencil copy of the cover artwork of Anna Muthesius' Das Eigenkleid der Frau. Canson 90g A4 spiral book, ca. 120 pages, from 2020.
(4) Sketch of a house in Curaçao, after a photo by Dr. Glenda Alicia Leung, also from the artists' A4 sketchbook. There are embroideries of this sketch on the garments which accompany these works.
(1) Purple drawing and scan by Felisha Bahadur, Paris, 2020.
(2) Photographed from outside the exhibition space, the original A5 chalk pastel drawings Whirlwinds of Being and The Creature Preparing were wrapped in Wenzhou paper and not fully visible during the exhibition.
The Parade Créole exhibitions and concepts are documented in Drawing Breath, written and edited by myself and designed by Káschem Büro / Visual identity (for stickers, postcards, instagram slides and posters) by Káschem Büro / Display system: custom design by Mokit Tools / All photos in gallery: S. Grigorieva
Funding and support for this exhibition, at Kiel's Pop Up Pavilion in September-October 2021, came from several sources. These include the Muthesius Kunsthochschule, Futur3 Festival, Kunstverein Haus 8, the Bund für Bildende Künstler, and Schleswig Holstein's Ministry for Education and Culture. We have done our best to include all the logos.
