BONDAGE CAPE | Nicoleta Faina

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT PHASES

INITIAL INSIGHT

The concept sprouted out from the brief introduced to me during the Erasmus Exchange in 2017 at Hochschule Augsburg -

MEMORY

STORE

MEMORY

STORE

For the duration of this semester, you will closely shadow someone (either yourself or someone who you see almost every day) and provide them with a compilation of illustrative and/or photographic evidence.

This person’s everyday life, characteristics and nuances should be conveyed in the form of drawings, photographic evidence, gathered objects and presented in the form of a pictorial diary.

This collection should then be used to produce an object made of fabric by the end of the semester. This will be a two-dimensional object, using fabric as our material of choice rather than paper as so often used thus far.

The final piece could be put together using implementation techniques such as cyanotypes, silk-screen printing, wood carving, any stitching technique, painting, collages, drawings etc.

The challenge of using textiles as a basis will force you to take a more flexible approach to design and will have an unforeseen impact on the end product, resulting in something that is decidedly “different”.

MEMORY

STORE

BRIEF

MEMORY

STORE

INTENSIFICATION

Research FABRICS

Research ARTISTS

WORKSHOPS

Initial Ideas

Choosing the subjects of my shadowing

A young student at the same University, that was in my dreams before meeting him in reality. It seemed a great opportunity to find out more about him by having the person be the subject of my shadowing project. However, it did not work out.
The bizarre looking man, called the King of Augsburg ( König von Augsburg ) by locals, caught my attention for a few times I have spotted him around the city. It was not convenient as I could not see him daily.
The tutor of student’s dormitory, as he was practising parkour, but he refused on the basis of it not being a regular practice that I could document.

INCUBATION

FINAL SHADOWING PROJECT

The project turned into an introspective one, where the subject of my research will be myself.

It was a great opportunity to create something that will record my memories and experiences from the exchange program.

Here is an outline of what I am enthusiastic about :

Nature

Weather (Rain and Storm in Germany reminded me of my home (Moldova): powerful, violent and loud.) + SNOW.
View from the top floor (19th) of the student accommodation I was in: Lechbrücke) Nature, Architecture, River, Transport, Stars.
LECH – river close to where I lived –> flowing into a larger river named Danube -> that flows through the country where I was born (Moldova).
Wild vegetation.
Large window view of the sunset from my room.

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Light

Sun and Moon.
Colour spectre; ultraviolet, phosphorescence.
Bioluminescence (living light).
Lighting during storm.
Purifying bright whiteness from snow.
Calming and hypnotising fire light.
Sunset and sunrise: colours.
The light company owned by my family in Moldova.

CONCEPTS

Initial Ideas:

Imprint with cyanotype photos from Augsburg:
Of me, that I took, of events to remember, places I have been and seen.
Use dye for textiles/ paint for offset printing on different paths, walkways, buildings, places and other things valuable for the memory they carry -> and then press the material against them.

Final Ideea:

Imprint various representatives of local flora using different techniques learnt during the Manual Printing workshops.

Choosing the Material

The fabric was found in a local vintage shop. It was perfect because of the following :

Soft feel
Flexible
White
Large ( a bedding sheet of 150x200 cm with a zipper on the short edge)
Unique ( tried to find something similar – could not. It was described as being a kind of processed cellulose by my professor.)

More Research + Sketch + Prototype

ILLUMINATION

Colouring the material:

Summer Solstice 2017

OUTER SIDE = SUN = Blue
Cyanotype. Nature imprinted on fabric during the Summer Solstice 2017. (5 hours of exposure to sunlight)

Before the sunrise, I laid the material flat on the ground, next to a willow tree and the canal, brushed in the cyanotype solution and laid out tree branches and leaves on top. The summer solstice’s sun-rays traced the vegetation’s silhouettes into the material. The parts that were exposed to light became blue and the ones in the shadow – remained white. During the five hours of colouration ritual, wind bought new leaves and removed some and it rained thus, it is safe to say that the nature imprinted herself in the material. I have washed out the fabric in the canal’s water, process that took another two hours, and brought it home where it was left to dry.

colouring - Outer Side - GALLERY

Midsummer Night/Sânziene Eve 2017

INNER SIDE = MOON = Pink, Orange, Red
Monotype. Nature imprinted on fabric from the Midsummer Night / Sânziene Eve / Saint John the Baptist during New Super Moon Phase + continued (5 nights of intensive work)

My friends from the student dormitory organised a bonfire next to the Lech and thus I had started the first night of Moon material’s colouration. From the flowers that I collected, I weaved a head wreath for myself and used the rest as a stencil where I would put textile paint one them and then leave them pressed under a rock and the fabric. In the morning, before sunrise, I returned with the material home. The same process continued for the next four days: before sunset I would go and collect flowers and leaves and then, during the night paint and press them onto the fabric.

colouring - Inner Side - GALLERY

Cutting and Sewing

The painted material was further transformed into a wearable piece of art that delivers the message: We are bonded to Nature and restrained by our Ephemerality. Following the ritualistic approach, the fabric was sewn into a ceremonial cape. Dramatizing the relationship between the body, its wearer and the environment while considering the language of form and how the costume interacts with the surroundings, the notion of a fixed posture and restriction of movement to the concept of the body architecture was introduced. This is achieved through the interactive experience of bondage application.

The back of the cape has been visually divided and along its vertical margins has equally distributed holes with installed eyelets through which the rope for the bondage will be feed. Thus, the result is a unique form created by the cape over the body of the wearer and shaped by the one applying the bondage ropes. It evokes a web that reduced the possibility to move and metamorphoses the wearer into a living piece of art, a sculpture that signifies the beauty of human interaction with, and not only with, its kind.

The feral and eerie are manifested through a bioluminescence appearance of the creation. Given that its colours brighten up under ultraviolet, the hypnotic and dazzling beauty of human body is intensified.

Bondage Cape represents a dualism of: sun and moon, cold and warmth, light and darkness, day and night, ephemeral and eternal, restriction/limitations and freedom, sunrise and sunset, presence and absence, life and death, dynamic and static.

Cutting & Sewing - GALLERY

DOCUMENTATION

- FINAL WORK -