MerimetsanAlchemy : alchemic research of fashion, photography and social therapy

MerimetsanAlchemy MerimetsanAlchemy MerimetsanAlchemy – alchemic research of fashion, photography and social therapy

MerimetsanAlchemy

MerimetsanAlchemy by Otto von Busch, Sirja-Liisa Vahtra and Diana Lui and Merimetsa. | ISBN: 978-91-976431-1-5 | Printed in Tallinn, Estonia for exhibition at HOP gallery, Tallinn, 14.06.- 03.07 2007. The project was generously supported by: French Cultural Center in Tallinn, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Society of Arts and Craft of Gothenburg Edited and published by Selfpassage (www.selfpassage.org) | Photos by Diana Lui (www.99medusas.com) | Project and exhibition organization by Sirja-Liisa Vahtra

MerimetsanAlchemy took place at the Merimetsa rehabilitation centre in Tallinn, Estonia in May 2006. As a participatory fashion and social therapy project it aimed at intersecting value production from fashion with manifold hands-on therapy work, replacing some of the sweatshop like production processes at the centre. The endeavor was a reflection of both inner and outer change and the process took form in the shape of garments and photographs. Part one of MerimetsanAlchemy, the RE_TALLiation project, began in spring 2004 as an intervention probing fashion as a tool for social work rehabilitation. The one-month long collaborative work took place at the rehab center Merimetsa in Tallinn, Estonia. The aim was to blend fashion production values with social work rehabilitation hence adding fashion value to the textiles sewn in the Merimetsa workshop. This shows how the “shallow” values of fashion could socially enrich the therapy work at Merimetsa. The project was an open call to suggestions and customization in all steps of production, from co-design and production to customer service improvements as well as fashion shootings at the rehab center. The project’s garment collection went on sale in a local fashion store and was sold out immediately. The purpose of both these projects, MerimetsanAlchemy and RE_TALLiation, was to update the existing modus operandi of production into a new format, a new process of operation, and make it run in another way. The idea was not a forced social experiment but a small-scale local gesture. These projects were a search for a magic intersection between social therapy, empowerment and fashion for both workers and garments at Merimetsa. MerimetsanAlchemy, as part two of this project furthers the exploration of intersecting the polyphonic fashion system with rehab production. This time the strategy was to widen the interface between production situation and the consumer, not through a mimetic approach to fashion photography, but by respectful documentation of the work in Merimetsa. Instead of com-

promising with the aesthetics and modes of production from fashion this step aimed at deepening the social therapy work with fashion as an alchemic tool. To understand both fashion and alchemy we must relate these practices to a concept with which they are both deeply entwined; the concept of myth. Fashion and alchemy are both usually seen as unserious practices with neither the social value of the fine arts nor the accuracy of the exact sciences. But myth is neither the opposite of science, nor is it a deception or untrue image of the world. Myths are the powerful imaginative fabrics we weave our world with. Myth does not veil reality but makes it visible, and just like fashion we live our lives inside it. It wraps the world with a holistic threadwork; not fragmenting the world into atomized and isolated data but weaving the narratives of the world into visible and tangible shapes. Though generally regarded as shallow and ephemeral, fashion is one of the strongest myths in contemporary society. Fashion can be regarded as another layer of the world, relating to deeper transformations in the lived experience. The world of fashion does not claim to access an eternal truth, and does not exist in the same time frame as science. To better understand this we can examine the concept of time, which according to ancient Greeks was two-folded; Chronos and Kairos. Modern science has emerged from the concept of Chronos, time as sequential duration and linear cause and effect relationships. The chronological time is a quantitative mode of measurement, and what we today have as a main concept of time – the time we can measure. Suffering can be chronic, but passion can never be. Both passion and fashion lives within Kairos, the momentary and the undetermined special occasion, the passing instant of density and depth where opportunity and life is exposed. It is the time of the “carpe diem”, the energy of the very “now” and of being in the flow – in the zeitgeist. Fashion is one with its zeitgeist, and cannot be visible outside it. When brought to the world where Chronos is exposed, to science, the archive or museum, fashion is just a dead skin. Perhaps a well tailored piece of clothing, but without life and social form.

To say that “fashion is to dress like everyone else, but before everyone else” might sound true from a chronological perspective, but misses all magic of the vivid occasion and the passion of the moment. With its connection to the life of the passing instant, fashion is always deeply connected to change and transformations. Not only the transformation of form/garment, what we usually regard as fashion, but the deeper change of our dreams, aims and behaviors – elements our identity is made of. Fashion is a myth of the moment, taking shape as our second skins through which we live in the world. Alchemy is the practice engaging the transmutation of matter and should not be misunderstood as a new age revival of healing, mysticism and astrology. Instead it is the methodic search for inner change symbolized by outer transformations. The medieval experiments of turning lead into gold were mere symbolic acts of a larger task; turning sinful soul to higher spirit. Understanding alchemy as this deeper journey can make us see how fashion can act as a symbol of inner change. MerimetsanAlchemy was a project processing the hope of inner and social change through highlighting a possible intersection of fashion and therapy. Alchemy has always been a practice collecting curiosities, opening viable passages into the unknown. But it has never been an aimless meandering. Instead it has been a vivid quest of spirituality through various means. As mentioned by French scholar of esoterism Antoine Faivre, alchemy is “both a way of life and an exercise of vision.” In its dynamic quest for transmutation of matter and spirit, alchemy has through history been working with the actualization of the possible. The possible in this case is not a linear extrapolation from the actuality of here and now. The possible is also not “the shadow of reality”, as Wittgenstein believes is philosophy’s greatest misunderstanding. Instead reality is a shadow of the possible. This is a position of hope and of empowerment. The possible is at hand, and we can form it and give it shape. It is a position where things are open for change and where the imaginable is in fluid form, ready to transform and crystallize into reality.

MerimetsanAlchemy

In a similar way we should not understand fashion as a question of adding symbolic labels and brands to the social skin, but a spiritual passage in direct connection to how we bring form to our identity. Thus the matter of MerimetsanAlchemy was made of fashion and myth. But it is important to understand that fashion is not the garment itself, nor a piece of fabric with a label. It is not the image in a glossy magazine. It is the projection of myth onto garments and the attitude and relation to this myth at the same time. This brings us to the materialization of MerimetsanAlchemy and the photographic images produced during the project. The fashion image is an icon. It is a passage to a higher ideal, a divine but unattainable ideal, the quintessential beauty. We relate to it, as through a passage. We adore it because we aspire to look and be like it. Contrary to portrait photography, fashion photography dictates acting, not looking. Portrait photography is a passage to the soul of others. We perceive the same light through the image that once hit the iris of the photographed subject. We have a relation of reflection, a deeper connection between two subjects and souls. The photographs of MerimetsanAlchemy are an amalgam between fashion and portrait photography. The material of the project was thus both garments and images, closely entwined through the process. The garments produced were an apron and a kimono-style jacket in rough canvas working fabric and very light linen. They were adjustable in size and easy to change into, and as such combined two functions: as work garments as well as elegant leisurewear. On one hand a sturdy garment for the cultivation of matter, on the other a thin veil of draped dreams. The transformation of both apron and kimono can be seen as a cooking process of turning raw ingredients into refined food as well as an interplay of roles and identities, combining domestic utility with understated elegance. The garments and their creators were documented by the photographer Diana Lui who has for a long time consciously worked with the photographic image as an honest portrait interface. The images she produces show a sincere commitment exploring the

question of how we relate to ourselves in time. Her operative craftwork and thorough piercing research on the subjects portrayed acts as a tool for revealing consonance and tension between the masks and roles we enact in everyday life. With the photographs as manifestations of the fashion process and a window between two parallel situations of change, the portraits are used as a passage for mutual existence. The world of production mirrors to the world of consumption, but it is in the mirror the transmutation takes form. The situation at Merimetsa is revealed to the viewer by using a large format camera with negatives in 8 X 10 inches and an early 20thcentury camera. The profound and intimate process of these portraits is a time-consuming procedure, creating a connection between two contexts, Merimetsa Rehabilitation Center and Fashion as an alchemic tool. These large format portraits act as a direct window between situations of hope and focus the work on the process of intersubjective change between these actors in two different settings. Not seeing them as two separate entities in each end of a production line, but instead as two interconnected existences bridged by the garment and with the photograph as an honest witness. Focusing on this connection might bring a better understanding and exchange of mutual hope in situations of similar inner work. This connection between both contexts is the manifestation of alchemy in the MerimetsanAlchemy project – bridging the inner and the outer world. Bound by trust the process is sensitively developed on each side of the camera, creating a situation similar to an interface. Not the passive consumption of a glossy fashion dream image, but a gesture towards a deeper understanding of the relation between Merimetsa and the photographer. It acts as a complement and contains a wider field of action as opposed to photography’s immanent tendency of single-sided communication (the photographer as operational master of the situation) – leaving more room for the model and photographer on both sides to create the photographic image. A deep surface of mutual transmutation.

The camera lens in this case becomes an eye of mutual attention; a meeting of two intentions, wills and souls – witnessed by the photographic film. Summoning the model’s attention to the lens is one step in a mutual attempt to transgress unintentional and habitual poses in front of a camera. As the two attentions meet (photographer and model) during the long process of common understanding, a certain presence of being is created between the two partners. The portraits reflect this deep process of mutual exchange with the photo as materialized memory of a tacit agreement. It sums up an alchemic process of garment design and rehabilitation creation/production witnessed by the alchemic processes of photography. The exhibition at Gallery HOP is made to reflect the alchemic process developed through the project. The visitors are encouraged to become participants, to witness and reflect a process of inner change, and to relate to it by trying on and wearing the garments produced at Merimetsa. Perhaps these garments can be a passage to self-engagement and become personal sewing activities. Perhaps they can be portals through which we can proceed with inner transmutation. So let’s try it on and step onto the stage. Say goodbye to shyness, passivity and gloominess and engage instead in forming our own attitude and relation to the second skin. Raise your consciousness to seize the moment and live passionately through the original beautiful myth of fashion! by Otto von Busch, Sirja-Liisa Vahtra, Diana Lui and the fantastic people at Merimetsa.

Literature: Antoine Faivre: “Esotericism” in Hidden Truths: Magic, Alchemy, and the Occult, (edited by L. E. Sullivan) Karen-Claire Voss: “Spiritual Alchemy” in Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times, (edited by R. van den Broek and W.J. Hanegraaff) Ludwig Wittgenstein: Notes on Philosophy

MerimetsanAlchemy

Nationality: Estonian Personal History: Occupation: Seamstress Location: Merimetsa Rehabilitation Center, Tallinn, Estonia

MerimetsanAlchemy

Nationality: Estonian Personal History: Occupation: Embroiderer and weaver Location: Merimetsa Rehabilitation Center, Tallinn, Estonia

MerimetsanAlchemy

Nationality: Estonian Personal History: Occupation: Seamstress Location: Merimetsa Rehabilitation Center, Tallinn, Estonia

MerimetsanAlchemy

Nationality: Russian/Estonian Personal History: Occupation: Embroiderer Location: Merimetsa Rehabilitation Center, Tallinn, Estonia

MerimetsanAlchemy

Nationality: Estonian Personal History: Occupation: Painter Location: Merimetsa Rehabilitation Center, Tallinn, Estonia

MerimetsanAlchemy – alchemic research of fashion, photography and social therapy by Otto von Busch, Sirja-Liisa Vahtra, Diana Lui and the wonderful people at Merimetsa