Sommersemester 2009, Projektarchiv Mode
hüperetnologic
“Die van tussi ost africas stampfen den tanz mit dem sie sich früher für einen kriegszug in die rechte stimmung brachten nun in gestellter wildheit für safari touristen.“
the selection is created of worn shoes which are being conveyed into a new usage and shape. In this case the shoe finds a new profile in the form of the mask or headcover. This modification from tool to artifact serves to the multileveling of the product, where the object is being processed through several phases of utilization. The idea of multiusage and recycling has in this way been, partly abstractly partly fictively, employed. An important aspect of this work is to show the phasedeph of the object and therewith achieve a higher substancelayering.
The jewelry itself in this matter has rather have to be understood as the process of masquerade and attitudinizing, as a means of customizing certain attributes and values. Through the explicit positioning of the jewelry or object the focuspoint becomes a constructed statement and correspondingly a valuation of the focusarea.
Jewelry in its original form finds its purpose in a highly spiritual context in which the operator gains a certain connection to the demonstrated. Furthermore the mask is specific quality strongly embroiled in the tribal ritual and functions as a ratified spiritual apparatus. In this momentary or longtime identification over the wear the jewelry serves as an extention of the personal identity or attributes.
A further extensive field, which is closely linked to the aspect of identification, is the moment of the display of power, where certain catergorized aesthetic expression clearly stand for a hierachial system of social and ethnological codes. The mask, which is marked with a constantly strong historian signification, serves for example the warier to take over the role of the strong animal, hence to consume its power and attributes. This projection of strength and potency is vital to capture the position of power.
(photography Rick Burger)
