BRANKOPOPOVICBLOG: State of Fashion 2024

Mohammed El Marnissi

On 16 May, the festive launch of the State of Fashion Biennale | Ties that Bind took place. During the opening a special artwork was unveiled and performance presented by designer Ruben Jurriën and students of Thomas a Kempis College in Arnhem. Also on show was a live performance by participating artists Ülkuhan Akgül and Batuhan Demir.

State of Fashion 2024: Ties that Bind brings together creative practices in fashion, textiles and contemporary art from across the Global South. Curated by Louise Bennetts and Rachel Dedman in collaboration with Sunny Dolat, Kallol Datta and Hanayrá Negreiros, this decentralised edition unfolds across Arnhem, Nairobi, Bengaluru and São Paulo. Ties that Bind explores the complexities of tradition, the power of indigenous knowledge, and the political potential of clothing.

Ties that Bind celebrates fashion in an expanded field, through critical creative practices from all over the world. How are artists from the Global South addressing and contesting colonial legacies embedded in clothing and cloth? How are designers evolving inherited traditions, and engaging with the urgencies of our time? Rooted in the universal intimacy of fabric, Ties that Bind seeks to amplify the kinships and connectedness among global practices, and share the powerful human stories woven into what we wear.

State of Fashion Biennale 2024 | Ties that Bind take place from 17 May to 30 June 2024.

From Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00-17:00, you can visit the Ties that Bind exhibition at the main location Rembrandt Theatre with spatial design by Maison the Faux. In addition, there is an installation at Museum Arnhem with live performace activation with artist Lisette Ros.

Themes - State of Fashion Biennale 2024 | Ties that Bind

Unfolding across four core themes, Ties that Bind unravels notions of tradition, explores the political power of clothing, and alternative approaches to exploitative fashion systems. How are artists from the Global South addressing and contesting colonial legacies embedded in clothing and cloth? How are designers evolving inherited traditions, and engaging with the urgencies of our time?

Themes:Political Bodies
By virtue of being made by hand and worn on the body, textiles and dress are intimately connected to people, society and the political. For hundreds of years, the textile trade was entwined with colonial systems of exploitation, but clothing has always remained a mode of resistance, as well as an instrument of repression. Artists and designers from across the Global South engage in the present with the potential and power of fabric: to challenge stereotypes around identity, origin and gender, to reflect upon migrant experience, to address the legacies of conflict, and to speculate on the future.

On show artists and designers: Azra Akšamija, Esna Su, Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, Jakkai Siributr, Alia Ali, Reena Saini Kallat

Theme: Dismantling Tradition
Tradition is a deceptively complex term. Fashion and the making of clothing are practices defined by constant change and transformation. Although we associate tradition with the past, it is never at odds with the innovative. In Dismantling Tradition, fashion designers from across the Global South revel in the historical techniques they inherit,using weaving, draping, sculpting, quilting, embroidering and paper-cutting to celebrate the enduring potential of textiles, and to evolve local legacies. At the same time, in the Global South traditions frequently represent indigenous knowledge that was marginalised and repressed under colonialism. Over hundreds of years, local textile and clothing practices were eroded and overwritten by imperial power; in recent decades, globalisation has homogenised our world’s diversity of dress. Designers today are not only reclaiming their heritage, but acknowledging this violence.

On show artists and designers: Christopher Raxxy, Nous Étudions, Lukhanyo Mdingi,Sun Lee, Maison ARTC, Kallol Datta, Karim Adduchi, NKWO, Mohammed El Marnissi.

Las Manuelas Project

Theme: Designing Integrity
Today’s global fashion system is heavily exploitative of the world’s human and environmental resources, and it is predominantly the Global South that bears the burden of demand for fast, cheap clothing. From the practice of waste colonialism – where developed countries dump their textile and clothing waste in developing countries – to the inhuman treatment of garment workers, the dominant economic model is unethical and unsustainable.
Designing Integrity brings together makers from across the Global South who are forging alternative approaches to the creation of fashion and textiles. Their work favours slow making, prioritises fair wages, and values transparency in their supply chain. These organisational principles are matched by creative innovation. Whether revitalising waste textiles or celebrating artisanal practices, such projects give agency and visibility to workers and labourers in the garment industry and beyond.

On show artists and designers: Material Atlas, ABOUT A WORKER, TMS.SITE, Buziga Hill, Luna Del Pinal, Las Manuelas Project

Mounira Al Solh

Theme: The Fabric of Shelter
Cloth is a building block of humans’ social and material lives; from birth we are swaddled, in death we are shrouded. The very word fashion means to make, to form. The technology of textiles is fundamental and ancient, and clothes are the changeable, ephemeral homes through which we navigate the world. From suspended sheets that conjure refuge amid conflict, to garments that enable individual worship, practices in The Fabric of Shelter use textiles to address the elemental connections between the body and architecture. Exploring grief and change, home and its loss, their works harness the familiar intimacy of fabric.

On show artists and designers: Melati Suryodarmo, Mounira Al Solh, Filwa Nazer, Hangama Amiri

State of Fashion 2024 | Tradition(al)
At the heart of this edition of the State of Fashion Biennale is a decentralised structure. Ties that Bind has unfolded across four places: the home site here in Arnhem, as well as in three sister sites in Kenya, India, and Brazil. In each sister site, an interlocutor-curator – Sunny Dolat in Nairobi, Kallol Datta in Bengaluru, and Hanayrá Negreiros in São Paulo – was invited to develop a Ties that Bind project embedded in their local context and community. Their thoughtful, powerful exhibitions happened in March and April 2024, and highlights from each one are presented in Arnhem.

Batuhan Demir & Ülkühan Akgül

State of Fashion Biennale curated by Fashion + Design Festival Arnhem

As part of the Ties that Bind Biennale, State of Fashion has invited Fashion + Design Festival Arnhem (FDFA) to organise an Open Call for Arnhem-based makers. From October 2023, Arnhem-related makers could apply for the Open Call. They were asked for a plan in which makers described their idea for an installation/presentation/performance around the theme of the Biennale. Hankyul Jeong together with HongKai Li and Jiwoo Lee, Raven, Batuhan Demir together with Ülkühan Akgül, Sophie Roumans and Bas Kosters reflect on the theme of this Biennale with new work. Especially for this part, an exhibition will be set up in Rozet Arnhem, which will be on view free of charge from May 17 to June 30, 2024.

More information: https://stateoffashion.org

State of Fashion is a platform for showcasing alternatives to the current fashion system. We connect fashion, explicitly and honestly, with the societal questions and challenges of our time, such as inclusivity and fair practice, the impact of globalisation and the climate crisis. Our leading question is how fashion can contribute to a better world?

Picture report

Opening

Ruben Jurriën and students of Thomas a Kempis College in Arnhem

Atelier Teddy
Bureau Ruimtekoers with Ruben Jurriën and students of Thomas a Kempis College in Arnhem

Ahmed Marcouch Mayor of Arnhem

State of Fashion Biennale
curated by Fashion + Design Festival Arnhem

Batuhan Demir & Ülkühan Akgül

Batuhan Demir & Ülkühan Akgül

Bas Kosters

Sophie Roumans

Wearable Stories by Raven

Hankyul Jeong together with HongKai Li and Jiwoo Lee

State of Fashion Biennale 2024 | Ties that Bind

Maison ARTC

Christopher Raxxy

Christopher Raxxy

Melati Suryodarmo feat. Lisette Ros atr Museum Arnhem

Melati Suryodarmo feat. Lisette Ros at Museum Arnhem

Melati Suryodarmo feat. Lisette Ros at Museum Arnhem