"One might very well say that fashion is the most universally despised/adored creature in society, apart from the celebrity and the policeman." (Bernadette Corporation, 2000 Wasted Years, 2000)
First, this seminar invites you to reflect collectively on the ambiguous relationships our society maintains with the notion of appearance and on how it is often relegated to so-called superficial and materialist questions. Why are the body and the mind still so often opposed in our Western society, and how does this dichotomy reinforce the power relations that exist between minorities and dominant norms? In a second phase, the seminar will take clothing in the broad (attitude, make-up, hairstyle, dress, etc.) and semiological sense of the term as its starting point and will use it as a tool of analysis in order to "re"think the role of the author in a performative sense. Does the expression of one's identity necessarily pass through the use of signifiers? How, as designers / artists, do we have a certain form of agency over what we communicate to the world?
The seminar will be structured around readings and videos – in French and English – which will be discussed in class and connected to the personal experiences and practices of each person. The proposed readings will be based on the trajectories of practitioners from the fields of fashion and contemporary art such as Stan Van Rompaey, Mark Leckey, Sondra Perry, Margiela, Telfar, or Bernadette Corporation. Whether the surface effects used are of the order of erasure or opulence, students will see that in every case it is a political choice that makes us subjects in our own right. It will simultaneously be for students to reflect on how to occupy this position and to cast a critical gaze upon it.