MAINLAND GREECE, 19th CENTURY : Ethnical traditional Greek costumes. Handmade with intricate detail, taking many months to complete, a symbol of the country’s national pride, Representing the significant battles fought throughout Greece’s modern history. Many of the details of the costume hide secrets and symbols.

CHAIN : Significant symbol that attributes the interlacing of two opposite elements - hard-soft, feminine-masculine.

FAMILY : Family is a significant aspect in Greek culture. Up to a point it influences and shapes the character of a person and determines his course in life. Taking inspiration from the opposing forces of my parents, I am trying to find the balance between feminine and masculine, sensitivity and stiffness.

CRETE : The 5th largest Mediterranean island well known for its culture. It represents the bold aspect of freedom and feminine power. Women were embraced and worshipped. Lots of art and decorations, red, black and off-white colours.

My childhood experiences triggered me to research the life of the older generations in South Korea, and in particular the role of women in the patriarchal society

I’ve always wondered why girls cannot be treated in the same way boys are treated

Korean women sea divers called Haenyeo in Korean. Haenyeo is a woman who goes into the sea to collect seafood in Jeju Island, wearing a simple wet suit, diving flippers and mask without an oxygen tank, and enters the sea to collect abalone, sea urchin and shellfish.

There are only women’s diver in South Korea. The reason is that in the early 1900s, when both men and women divers have existed, mend had too many requests to collect the abalones and they couldn’t endure the hard work anymore. As a result, men left Jeju Island.

Another hypothesis is that compared to the women, men does not have a good lung capacity because of smoking and drinking. Since the lung capacity is very important to be a diver, only women divers are survived in the industry. Haenyeo is the symbol of Jeju Island and they represent an independent woman in South Korea. Haenyeo needs a weight belt for diving and the belt is called ppongdol. Normally they make the ppongdol as a vest and the fabrics are their own choice. That’s why every Haenyeo has different patterned-vest.

While I was researching the women’s lives in the 1930s in South Korea, I found out there are many knotting technics in the outfits. They made knots to tie their skirts and pants or hold a baby. People used knotting for the practical reasons but it looks beautiful and adds some value on the outfits.

These pictures remind me of motherhood. Many women had to work and take care of their children without husband’s support in the 1930s

HERITAGE : Our idea of beauty and comfort is rooted in our past experiences, so to care for your inherited items and carrying traditions forward is to find pleasure in what’s part of you.

COLLECTING/HOARDING : I am a hoarder when in comes to old sheets, lace works and linens so this will always be part of my experience of beauty, to handle them is something that gives me great pleasure.

PRIDE IN HANDCRAFT : What can your hands do? They are quite beautiful on their own and there is an irregularity in what they produce - identical copies are impossible. Nowadays we tend to be limited in what movements our hands make (we work through the keyboard or the phone) but to reconnect our bodies to our work is physical therapy.

MENDING AS MEDITATION : Finding meaning in repetition and skill as tools for mental balance, a chance to think in silence. Repairing on the outside is repairing on the inside.

Searching for the untitled and undefined balance

BEHIND THE SCENES :
The facts about pretty Koreans -
plastic surgery or beauty filters are too visible an effort.
What is next?
The cut-outs to see skin, highlighting the knee.
Some of my outfits have these cut-out features.

Layered lines to support the structure.
Different textures between visible boning parts and hidden ones under other layers.
Using the boning to create the shape.

The order of the world :

A sign is a visual communication to understand the world
but the world is changing too fast.
We need new rules!!!

What they carry: No-one knows what happened before. Interesting shape of layered and tied -up trash .

Orderly chaos: Functional - but no function. The signs are no longer fit to convey the proper meanings because of unexpected circumstances.

Pulling us out of reality for a more imaginative and conscious perception of our feelings and surroundings

Object: simplicity, or ‘eenvoud’ in Dutch. Staged picture of MDF with traces of use. Relation between materials, shape and light makes the object more important.

MERGING IN DAILY LIFE : This price tag on the fabric is made with more care than other price tags I have seen. It is almost like it belongs to the fabric.

Serenity: Spaces that you can look trough and maybe think of as not actually a space still give the serenety of a space. The sug- gestion of being able to go inside.

SELF MADE TEXTILE DESIGN : I like the way the illusion this technique and fabric create together with using just one simple tchnique. They strengthen each others characteristics.

In this picture I like the expression of the clothing. It almost seems to static to be worn. They could be a person as well as a statue, would it be painted in black and white.

Self-made miniature heads which possibly replace human models. They remind me of gargoyle heads. Can’t these be alive too?

Merging in daily life: People outside meet each other the real world but look like they are styled to belong together at that spot. They become just as important as the objects around them.

Partly self staged, partly staged by behaviour of the object. I can see the shape of move- ment or life in this picture.

MERGING IN DAILY LIFE : The big metal me- chanical claw destroying these fragile flowers. To me it does make it less sad to know these flowes were planted by humans and thus not completely natural.

RITUAL: In this picture I feel passion, movement, tactility, sound, expression. A total experience is going on. It is not only about looking.

MAGICAL REALISM : The figure pictured is on the edge of being human or creature. Realistic and unrealistic. The human-object distinction is minimalized. [Koch, Pyke. The Contortionist. Amsterdam: Stedelijk museum, 1955]

Own image. Laura’s pants: ongoing project.
Ritual: Laura fixing her pants that tear time after time. The hours that are in this pants make these pants very personal. The soul shifts from maker to object.

MERGING IN DAILY LIFE : My friend in a toile I made, doing her own work. The neutrality that arises, while the dress is so dramatic, brings an interesting context.

Tactility: This portrait hardly says anything about age or gender. Everything looks neutral and almost non-human. What gives away that it is in fact a person is that it depicts one but the tactility is totally different.

Stephen Tennant: A socialite, part of the elite from the past. People who were from the elite were also people others looked up to because they wanted to be them or be part of their circle. The power they showed off to influence people with. Now you can see this phenomenon again with idols and influencers on social media. The power to sell an image of a specific body type, way of dressing, products etc. Same power, different time area.

@itscamworld: The instagram boy of the moment. The good-looking influencer, his way of posing, his way of dressing, all hyped-up, The kind of boy that girls and boys are looking up to and idolise.

Calvin Klein ad Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin: 2 big celebrities with huge influence on teenagers. Posing in little clothing to show off their great physique. The ideal image… - teenagers think this is how they should look.

Style clones: Boys nowadays follow each other and somehow tend to all dress the same. the godlike phenomenon for the ones with less influence and with the urge to follow.

Yutha Yamanaka : Reaching out to something you can’t touch or have because everything happens behind a screen.

Everything for the gram: Nudity and less clothing has become the normal on social media to attract the attention of the viewer - sex sells.

Doppelgänger, 2017. John Reuss: Representation of the mind how teenagers want to become a specific person. The Ideal. Slowly they become like clones of each other. You can see it in the way they all follow each other.

This Image represent that this phenomenon only last for a short period of time. It’s just a certain part of their life. They grow into it and then out of it again.

The Dreamers : A movie that is a part of the inspiration. The 3 main characters are recreating movie scenes and they have to guess which movie it is. If they’re not able to it they have to perform a sex-related punishment. It’s nice because they have the freedom to have a childish mindset but on the other hand the punishments tell something different.