Telling Tremors

While the fashion discourse now ascribes agency to garments and is fascinated with uncovering their biographies, the lives of nonhuman animals behind them are left unaddressed. In a western human-supremacist paradigm, nonhuman animals are relegated to objects of use — either materially or symbolically — that serve our ‘humanness.’ Transforming them into garments and stereotypical representations, fashion is no exception. Through garment vivisection (the dissection of a "living" garment) and assemblage (with the use of image and text fragments from a variety of sources), this work reveals and proposes narratives about the nonhuman animals behind a garment made from animal materials. 

In Telling Tremors, an audiovisual work created  in close collaboration with Youngeun Sohn (filming and editing) and with support from the Amarte Fonds, artist Femke de Vries dissects a woollen garment through what she calls garment vivisection: the anatomical disassembly of a "living" piece of clothing. Combining this act with assemblage techniques using image and text fragments from various sources, she reveals and proposes new narratives about the nonhuman animals behind garments made from animal materials. This edition, Sheep Have Good Memories, tells a story of sheep behind a woolen sweater, as beings with lives of their own.

In addition to the presentation of Telling Tremors at New Order of Fashion, Femke will also take part in the panel discussion Human–Animal Relationships (Wednesday 22 October) and lead the participatory workshop Which Animal is Present in Your Garment?, in which visitors are invited to analyse their own clothing and reflect on the hidden presence of animals in fashion.