December, 2010. My mother and I are very close. She is my parent, my best friend, my idol, my hero. If there is ever something slightly off with either of us, the other can tell. Certain facial expressions or comments, or even the lacking of, can make us know when something is wrong. I had just started my art foundation course and had nearly finished the first term when I noticed. I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly, but there was something not quite right about my mum. Perhaps she was just having a small case of the winter blues as Autumn had finished. Maybe she was worried about money coming up to Christmas. I told my friend at the time, ‘I don’t know what it is but there’s something not right about Mamo, there’s something she’s not telling me, something is wrong’.
I remember it like it was yesterday. She came into my bedroom, sat on my bed, and ushered me over to sit next to her. I started crying before she even got to the C word. She told me how she’d found a lump in her right breasts and after a few trips to the hospital, it was confirmed.
Cancer. The dreaded word of the 21st century. The word no one wants to hear fall from a loved one's mouth.
My mother said she didn’t want to tell me initially as she didn’t want to worry me. It was hard to understand at first. How could she not tell me? I thought we were close? Did she not think I could handle it? As time went on I began understanding her decision, knowing it was simply her being a good parent and caring. But not only did time allow me to understand, it also got me thinking about all the millions of people around the world who keep in information about themselves, information that changes them as a person, and yet never share it with another.
April, 2011. Coming into my last term of the foundation course, it was time to think about what I wanted to explore and focus on for my final major project. I wanted to create something that would allow people, like my mother, to release the burden of a secret in a safe, anonymous environment. After months of research and work I created an installation, much like a church confession booth. It was small and secluded, with low lighting and a curtain for privacy. All I wanted was for at least one person to feel like they could set free something that they’d been holding in. At the end of the week exhibition, I was overwhelmed by the response. Over 50 people had shared a part of themselves with me, some light hearted and humorous, others much deeper and darker. I witnessed one woman wiping tears from her face as she exited the makeshift room. I was unsure if they were happy tears or tears of sadness but either way, my creation had allowed a release of emotion from inside of her. I had succeeded.
September, 2015. It had been 5 years since my mother announced her illness and 4 years since she beat it. After a difficult few years, I'd made it to the final year of my degree and it was the year I had been excited for since day one of starting the course. I finally had my chance to design and create a collection that was completely me. Of course, a concept must come first but I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to explore again the idea of personal secrets and how they manipulate identity and character. It was a subject that started with my mother in 2010, but I’d not stopped thinking about all the way up until current day. But not only other people. It had opened my mind up to understanding why I myself have particular traits and what events in my past have triggered them. Of course, some of my personality will be down to nature, what my parents are like, what runs in the family. But I believe that experiences like being bullied, being a competitive gymnast for 12 years, or past relationships have all cause multiple changes to my character, making me who I am today. And of course, this happens to everyone on this planet, not just myself.
“Be kind, for everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
Amongst all these experiences, there will be some that never get told to another person for many reasons; shame, embarrassment, fear of judgment. Whilst these may cause the same changes on a person as occurances that they freely tell, it’s the secret, untold, unpublished pieces of information that I am interested in for this project. My previous project with a similar concept was completed with the construction of a confession booth, so I was looking forward to using a similar idea and seeing how the outcome would be different when executed in the form of fashion and clothing. I want to show this in both literal and non-literal senses. For the literal, I will demonstrate this through the embroidery on both the inside and outside of the garments, with patterns of my fingerprints as well as a combination of my own and other people’s secrets written in handwriting. To demonstrate it in a less literal way, fabric manipulation, embellishment and layers will be key features of this collection to represent different layers of a person; how manipulating and changing the fabric can create different illusions and features, similar to one’s personality; and embellishing the outsides of the garment to hide the inside, like how some may decorate their exterior using clothing and make up to distract and hide from what is really happening underneath and inside.
In one sentence, this whole project is simply an extended version of the well known lesson, ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’.
