Unmaking

Unmaking an essay-film created by Lara Torres in 2016 was part of an iterative exhibition over the course of three years in London, Vienna, Warsaw, Kalmar and Rimini as part of Transfashional, on the initiative of Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw and University of Applied Arts in Vienna. The same project was shown in a variety of spaces across Europe, each instalment proposed a different response, submitted here as a multi-component output consisting of an essay film, 8 exhibitions and a book chapter.

The project’s methodology represents a significant departure for fashion practices, moving away from imperatives of productivity using film and reflection as the basis for the study. The work examines the potential for filmmaking to form an explicit method of recording and transferring fashion knowledge, and the usefulness of film analysis for fashion practitioner research is explored using this methodology. Reflective practice is used as a way to explore how the fashion object can create transferrable fashion knowledge related to making. Torres adopted the role of the reflective practitioner, keeping video journals and mood boards throughout the project reflecting on progress, process and theory.

The research borrows methods of analysis from film studies such as David Montero’s Thinking Images: The essay film as a Dialogic Form in European Cinema (2012) establishing film as a thinking medium and Mieke Bal’s notion of Thinking in Film, the politics of video installation according to Eija-Liisa-Ahtila (2013). The work deconstructs fashion via an interdisciplinary approach that uniquely asserts filmic montage as a fashion criticality, generates critical understanding, and stimulates questioning within the audience.

Unmaking was further disseminated at The End of Fashion conference held in Massey University, New Zealand and at the Royal College of Art ‘Dialogues and Explorations 2018’ Knowledge Production Through Practice – Deconstruction as Method at Royal College of Arts.

• Organisation
• Organisation
• https://www.studiostefaniamiscetti.com/c...