If you’re in Melbourne next Friday 9 December, come along to the opening of the TEGA Boniko ‘Ensemble’ exhibition at BlackCat Gallery.
The exhibition will showcase collaborations between fashion designer Rioko Tega and three creatives: musician Tina Stefanou, philosopher Damon Young, and me. Damon has worked with Rioko to create a jacket for writer-philosophers, and I’ve written a noir short story starring a fictional Rioko Tega.
The story is called ‘The Patternmaker’ and will be published in the anthology Sydney Noir in 2018. Sydney Noir is part of a series by Akashic Books in Boston, which does noir anthologies based in cities all over the world. They’ve previously published writers including Dennis Lehane, Joyce Carol Oates and Jonathan Safran Foer.
I will be reading from the story at next Friday’s opening. On display will be the result of a shoot with photographer Sean Meaney, in which I asked the real Rioko to recreate the fictional Rioko from the story.
You’ll also be able to check out new pieces from the TEGA Boniko label. The label’s philosophy: unisex, sizeless, seasonless.
A little more about the exhibition:
Ensemble is a collaborative work by TEGA Boniko designer Rioko Tega, that investigates the relationship between the artist/designer, the garments and those that wear them by bringing together fashion, written word, philosophy, video and performance art in an installation.
Making a stand against throwaway culture and questioning the fast, profit driven fashion industry, Tega aims to take the collaboration to the next level of experimentation redefining the relationship between those that make and wear clothing by asking them to intervene with the garments artistically in order to create new original relationships devised between the designer, those that wear the garments and the environment, while challenging her dilemma as a commercial patternmaker taking a huge part in the disposable fashion culture and as an independent designer/maker creating human focused garments to cover all bodies.
Event Details
BlackCat Gallery
95 Johnston Street
Collingwood, Victoria
Opening reception: Friday 8 December, 6–8pm
Exhibition runs 7–26 December.
