Clothes convey cultural values, reflect social belonging, they are a crucial vehicle of individuality, and they transport nothing less than a world view – they are our second skin. Isn’t there a perplexing feeling, of treason almost, when coming across a stranger wearing your favourite garment? There is no sharing, we definitely prefer to see our clothing as unique.
Countless emotions and memories are thus stored in this outer layer of our identity. The Romanian artist group Apparatus 22 sets out to map our relationship to clothes in the truest sense of the word: over a prolonged period, Polaroid snaps will be taken of visitors, later to be sorted into emotional categories together with the artist group. With the photographs and the related stories Apparatus 22 will draft an oversized mind map, an installation that examines the representational power of clothes over body and identity. Snapshots of the inhabitants and visitors of Bad Gleichenberg will no doubt reveal much more than fashion preferences.
Featuring a recent participation in the 2013 edition of the Venice Biennale, the artist group entered the collective unconscious of the people of Graz during the steirischer herbst festival 2011 by carrying out an exchange ritual that involved artist-made amulets charged with positive energy bartered for visitors’ nightmares. “Cartography II (Bad Gleichenberg)” is another exchange in which members of the public are encouraged to reveal their emotions towards clothing that will build a public cartography of constructed identities. Bonus in the exchange, each photo will be returned to its rightful owner after the show.