The death mask project is an ongoing collaboration between Rachel Freire and fine artist Ben Ashton. The faces are moulded by Rachel using traditional leather techniques and painstakingly painted by Ben to eerie hyper-real effect. These age old techniques are our old school take on the Uncanny Valley.
This week we handed over the first batch of mi.mu gloves to our collaborators, a selection of exciting individuals and groups working across the spectrum of music, performance and technology. These collaborators are our first users, and we set up 'Barncamp' in Imogen Heap's Barn so they could pick up their gloves in person, meet each other and attend a special program of workshops to learn about their gloves and start to make art. We were visited by the BBC, CNN, Wired and Dezeen so watch out for video updates on mi.mu social media. We also had the most enviable xmas tree you can imagine. It is programmed to react to sound and provided a gorgeous backdrop to the collaborator presentations.
Two jumpsuits from AW10 collection 'future noir' are currently on display at MUDAC design museum in Lausanne, Switzerland in the exhibition Nirvana: Les Etranges Formes du Plaisir. Displayed alongside a host of amazing artists, photographers and designers, the jumpsuits will tour with the exhibition for the next 12 months.
Nirvana is the first comprehensive exploration of the influence of erotica in design, fashion and contemporary art. By turns cheeky, luxurious and mysterious, the exhibition presents the work of around one hundred contemporary creators who make use of an iconography connected with sensual pleasure, drawing inspiration from erotic and fetishist literature, and from the images, objects and garments to which they frequently refer. Visitors will discover objects of superior workmanship, many of them rare and inaccessible, made from materials associated with the world of luxury goods and craftsmanship.
The exhibition forces us to re-examine our own ideas and perceptions of pleasure, and shows how forms can be transmuted from the private to the public sphere. MUDAC
Rachel Freire AW10 (top L+R) by Diego Indraccolo. Flyer and exhibition photos © MUDAC
