Felicia Hertada

This is a project of creating a wearable “body covering that reveals and conceals” made from wire and non-traditional materials. Starting from researching a specific piece of art or clothing at the Metropolitan Museum collection, I reinterpret it for this project of creating a piece that can be worn, attached to, or cover a specific part of the body. For this, I chose to make an armband inspired by two objects from MET and Javanese traditional dancer clothes. The dance itself is called “Wayang orang” and they usually have a costume for each character but each of them always has this armband. This performance was almost like a musical drama. As a performative means, I’m inspired by traditional dances and I imagine this to be worn as a piece to the performers. By making it more detailed and bigger, it gives specific attention to the hand and maybe makes the hand move more gracefully. As a means to present oneself, I was making this as jewelry as people also usually use this as identity. It might also be seen differently as stiff wire might be too complicated to use every day. Also, the design that I made with many spikes, might represent that beauty can be a two-faced sword where there’s a price to one beauty and how beauty is pain. This relates to one desires, fears, and temptations. Lastly, as a means of communication, this work can be used easily if you exhibit this to engage with the viewer. The design was made to be very efficient.