First Year students in Integrative Seminar 2: Fashion, taught by Parsons faculty Lucy Chudson visited “The Runway” exhibition at the Nohra Haime Gallery on Tuesday, February 15, 2022. The work on view in the group exhibition of seven artists was inspired by concepts of dress. In addition to viewing the exhibition, students were given a private gallery talk arranged for the class.
Connected to the course’s theme of “ How Fashion Communicates”, students shared written reflections on experiencing the exhibition and seeing these highly conceptual artworks’ interpretations of fashion as a tool of communication.
Read the excerpts from several students’ written reflections below!
Photo courtesy of Nohra Haime Gallery
“ The Nohra Haime Gallery explored the idea of conveying…historical narratives through fashion. The exhibition was set up to mimic a runway with three of the garment sculptures placed in a line in the center of the room. This created a natural flow to walk around the room.”
“With the burning The Wedding Dress, (artist Adriana Marmorek) and photography showing Columbian street vendors all wearing the same white gown (artist Ruby Rumié), topics of race, gender and transformation were explored.”
“I believe the (exhibiton’s) curators wanted to display fashion’s transformative properties.”
– OLIVIA BERESFORD
Photo courtesy of Lucy Chudson
“ I know that (artist) Adriana Marmorek’s intention (in the photographic series The Wedding Dress) was to challenge the idea of sentimentality and clothing, or memory and clothing, using a wedding dress as her garment of choice.”
“… the field trip experience was very conducive to the theme of our course: What Fashion Is and How Fashion Communicates.”
– CHRISTINA COSTANZO
Curatorial Assistant Carolina Scarborough leads a gallery talk for First Year students. Photo courtesy of Lucy Chudson.
“ I think the curators were interested in exploring how art can be so related to fashion without it (the artwork) being an actual constructed wearable garment. Each of the pieces was a form of sculpture or photography, yet could be described as a fashion piece. They had strong storytelling aspects and all were very conceptually-driven pieces.”
“The exhibition blurs the line between fashion and art.”
– MARIA GROSS
Photo courtesy of Lucy Chudson
“My personal favorite (work) from the exhibition was the piece with the market women (Series of photographs of Market Women in Cartagena, Columbia by artist Ruby Rumié) all dressed in the beautiful white gown…
After a recent trip to Africa, I was able to see how market women lived and more importantly, how they were treated by others. This piece humanized them, showing the viewer that these women were not just workers, but somebody’s daughter, mother, sister and friend.”
– RICHARD HARRISON
Photo courtesy of Lucy Chudson
” … the exhibit revolved around the concept of fashion or clothing in general, as a medium for people and artists to truly express themselves… It (offers) a concept of creating a communicative work of art through fashion and the human body.”
– RYAN LEUNG
Photo courtesy of Lucy Chudson