Joanna Walsh is the new resident of BoSA - Briefing on Soft Arts project. During the residency she will focus on the histories and current strategies of the women, nonbinary and trans people who use these borders to produce what Jack Halberstam called 'female masculinities' via formal and informal 'performances', from butches to dandies to drag kings. "In an age in which women can 'wear anything' I'm interested in what delineates the still gendered borders of dress that, so often now, lie not in the garment but in the way of wearing it."
She will also lead a workshop Rewriting the garment on the 19/9 6-8 pm at CIMO.
More about the workshop:
“I open a fashion magazine; I see that two different garments are being dealt with here. The first is the one presented to me as photographed or drawn--it is image-clothing. The second is the same garment, but described, transformed into language; this dress, photographed on the
right, becomes on the left: a leather belt, with a rose stuck in it, worn above the waist, on a soft shetland dress; this is a written garment.” - Roland Barthes, The Fashion System
“‘Electric Blue For Blondes!’
I am happy to be here at the shops—happy, not to choose, not having
the money to choose—but to see choice. Happy for there to be choice,
happy to find what choice I might be right for, happy to be able to say
I can choose even if I cannot choose. I do not have even this choice
elsewhere.
‘Women—especially those with style—gain enormous pleasure from choosing
clothes.’
There are blondes, brunettes and redheads. Then there is skin tone.
Then there is style.
‘Peachy pink for instance is a warm yellow-based colour, while shocking pink
is a cool, blue-based one.’
What am I?”
Joanna Walsh - Seed-story.com
What is a ‘written garment’ now that the fashion writing of Roland Barthes’ era (the 1960s) has been replaced by a high-octane world of advertorials, AI-slop, influencers, de-influencers and fashion activists? Given increased awareness of fashion’s involvement with environmental destruction and labour exploitation, but also of its potential for self-actualisation, gender modulation, and political expression, how can we creatively rewrite Barthes’ garment outside what he called ‘The Fashion System’?
Join author, artist, theorist and fashion-writer, Joanna Walsh for a workshop in fashion writing, for writers and fashion fans of all experience levels and ages. Dress as you dream, come as you are.
Apply by 18/9 at: cimo.info.hr@gmail.com
Joanna Walsh a multidisciplinary writer for print, digital and performance. The author of twelve books (several co-written with DIY AIs that she coded), her publishers include Semiotext(e), Bloomsbury and Verso. She is the creator of the digital narratives, seed-story.com and misscommunication.ie . Her work has been performed/exhibited at venues including IMMA, the ICA, BETA Festival Dublin, and Sample Studios Cork. She founded and directed the online activist projects @read_women (2014-18), and @noentry_arts (2019_2024). She was the 2020 Markievicz Awardee for Literature, the 2017 UK Arts Foundation fellow for literature; an Anthony Burgess Centenary Writer Fellow at the University of Manchester and a 2024 DAAD Artists in Berlin awardee (refused in solidarity with the Palestine). For two years, she wrote the monthly fashion x critical theory column, Theory of Style, at Spike Art Magazine, Berlin.
Additional links:
seed.story.com
https://spikeartmagazine.com/categories/theory-of-style
joannawalsh.ie
Photo: Nick West
Project supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb and Foundation Kultura Nova
