Donatella Barbieri
Material Agency
“HOW IS YOUR COSTUME AGENTIVE?”
The costume matter of Precede / Inform / (per) form exposes a methodology devised to define the agency of costume while enfolding its ethical implications, as such it performs its own agency.
BIOGRAPHY
Costume scenographer and researcher Donatella Barbieri is the author of Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture and the Body (PQ19 Best Performance Design Publication award) and founding editor of Studies in Costume and Performance. Her costumed interventions have been performed and displayed internationally while her participatory practice has been re-proposed beyond the UK in cities across Europe, including Prague, Oslo, Tallin and Galway. As a result of her long standing research into the agency of costume, in 2006 she founded the experimental MA in Costume Design for Performance at LCF:UAL from where many groundbreaking costume artists have since emerged.
As well advancing discourse through practice, publishing and teaching, Donatella supervises PhDs at London College of Fashion: UAL.
TITLE: Precede / Inform / (per) form
The title refers to costume matter that, intent on generating meaning through performance, anticipates and invites movement. Three types of gestural objects (enfoldings, body-ings and entanglements) are the focus here. These expose concrete ways in which matter co-constructs bodies, relationships and gestures. The images presented draw from three projects, Moving/Drawing (2008), Wearing Space (2015) and Material Interaction (2019), which are part of an archive of photographically-documented participatory movement practice.
1. Enfoldings re-shape materials – paper or starched fabric – into iterations and differences, which are explored by the participants in experiential, ritualised encounters. Participatory unfoldings are the ‘Collars’ of Material Interactions (2019) and the ‘Paper Folds’ of Wearing Space (2015).
2. Body-ings are fleshy hybrids through which the human body is ‘othered’ into human/non-human movement. Hybrids grew around bodies in the ‘Extensions’ of Material Interactions (2019) in which also participants could also be entirely absorbed into the ‘Bulbous Bodies’.
3. Entanglements enact co-dependence between human and non-human matter through movement. Such co-creation makes evident how one gesture impacts on the whole. Entangled gestures here demonstrated through the ‘Wires’ of Moving/Drawing (2008) and ‘Frames’ in Material Interactions (2019).
GENERAL CREDITS
Donatella Barbieri. Key co-creators: costume artist Clare Amos and movement artist Marie Gabrielle Rotie (2008); costume artist Giulia Pecorari and movement artist Mary Kate Connolly (2015) were joined by costume and sound artist Pinar Gercek and research assistants Anna Clifford and Tanja Jovicevic in 2019. Images for this exhibition were co-created with visual artist Carol Wyss. This research acknowledges the support of London College of Fashion, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, PQ19 and of DAMU, Prague, as well as the many wonderful participants who have taken part over many years. Radvilė Kisieliūtė, Tanja Jovicevic and Anna Clifford.
IMAGE CAPTIONS & CREDITS
01
Body-ing 1. Two participants in Material Interactions, 2019, expose hybridity as inter-subjective in a joint physical and material exploration of relational movement.
Donatella Barbieri, Material Interactions, 2019, participatory event, Bulbous Bodies in DAMU studio, Prague Quadrennial 2019
Foto: Giulia Pecorari
02
Body-ing 2. A composite body created by the interaction between material Extensions and the participant in a lengthy improvisation that imagines alternative possibilities of being and moving.
Donatella Barbieri, Material Interactions, 2019, participatory event, DAMU studios, Prague Quadrennial 2019
Foto: Giulia Pecorari
03
Body-ing 3. Improvisations by the participants of Material Interactions at Prague Quadrennial 2019 were shared with the audience of the Industrial Palace in Prague.
Donatella Barbieri, Material Interactions, 2019, performance, Industrial Palace, Prague Quadrennial 2019
Foto: Sergio Gianoli
04
Enfolding 1. In Material Interactions, the unfolding movement of Collars was guided by Mary Kate Connolly. They then dissolved into cloud-like cocoons that filled the studio.
Donatella Barbieri, Enfolding, 2019, participatory event, London College of Fashion, London College of Fashion, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Foto: Donatella Barbieri
05
Enfolding 2. The gestures enfolded into hundreds of Paper Folds were created to be released by the participants wearing or holding them in Wearing Space, 2015-2016.
Donatella Barbieri, Wearing Space, 2015-2016, performance
Foto: Giulia Pecorari
06
Enfolding 3. Body and Paper Folds enfolded each other in the expanded physiological proprioception that was to be explored in Wearing Space.
Donatella Barbieri, Wearing Space, 2015, performance, Laurie Grove Studios, London College of Fashion, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Foto: Giulia Pecorari
07
Entanglement 1. A participant of Moving/Drawing, 2008, improvises in response to barely visible aluminium armature wires that loop around her back and draw shapes on the floor.
Donatella Barbieri, Moving/Drawing, 2008, participatory event, London College of Fashion, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Foto: Donatella Barbieri.
08
Entanglement 3. Mary Kate Connolly’s improvisation is with multiple connected Frames, articulating a complex, ever-moving creative externality.
Donatella Barbieri, Material Interactions, 2019, participatory event, London College of Fashion, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Foto: Donatella Barbieri
09
Entanglement 2. The armature Wires have been given bodily presence in Material Interactions, 2019, through a ‘skin’ of wool that enables invention with this participant.
Donatella Barbieri, Material Interactions, 2019, participatory event, London College of Fashion, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Foto: Donatella Barbieri
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