Amarte Fonds and FASHIONCLASH joined forces to offer artists from different disciplines the opportunity to experiment with fashion and present new work during FASHIONCLASH Festival 2024.

Five artists have been selected via an Open Call, with an intrinsic desire to collaborate with a fashion designer, and to relate to the fashion context. They were then paired by FASHIONCLASH with a fashion designer and invited to experiment.

Photos: Laura Knipsael/ Ruben Hilkens

During the opening, two performances were shown that were developed from the project. The first image of the opening was 'eight', the installation performance by Taiwanese drag artist and designer Naza Løtus and costume design duo The Nightmare Disorder. A performance that transforms costumes into narrative media, combining fashion and drag to create a unique blend of cultural stories and artistic expression. With 'I SEE YOU SEEING ME' by designer Katharina Spitz in collaboration with poet/artist Manka Menga, questions are asked about being a woman, the desire for rituals and the location of the physical body in space and time. Manka and Katharina are inspired by women who, through their resistance to societal norms, have earned a place in both the history books and in the hearts and minds of society.

Photos: Laura Knipsael, Ruben Hilkens, Mitch van Schijndel

Manka Menga X Katharina Spitz and Naza Løtus x The Nightmare Disorder showed their installation/performance not only at the Opening Night, but also at Marres. Here, one could also discover WEEF.collective X Roumans who explore new dimensions of transience with their 'Atelier of Transcience'. Through their significant vision, they magnify the delicate interplay of time: accelerating processes, questioning the life cycle of textiles and exploring the essence of sustainability.

Photos: Mitch van Schijndel

With 'Building a House or Digging a Hole', Mira Verhoeve x Dirk Vaessen transformed De Meldkamer into an interdisciplinary, physical and disorienting work that borders between design and performance.Inspired by mazes, negative space and the strong but vulnerable nature of paper, Dirk and Mira present a study that asks questions about the search for identity and the feasibility of a utopia.

Photos: Laura Knipsael

ULKAAN, which stands for the collaboration between Kaan Hiçyilmaz & Ulkuhan Akgul, presented their installation 'cid' at Mariastraat 13. At set moments, the installation was activated by performers Famil Zaman and Aidan Bay. With a focus on disrupting conventional identity classifications, this collaboration combined fashion and digital technology to explore the semiotics of the human body beyond binary structures. Their approach to fashion becomes a plea for the manifestation of self-expression(s) against restrictions imposed on individuals.

Photos: Mitch van Schijndel

FASHIONCLASH and Amarte Fonds have joined forces to offer artists, from disciplines other than fashion, the opportunity to experiment with fashion and present new work during FASHIONCLASH Festival 2024.

Through an Open Call, 5 artists with an intrinsic motivation and curiosity to relate to fashion as a discipline, were selected and connected to a fashion maker by FASHIONCLASH to collaboratively develop new work. We are pleased to introduce the following 5 couples:

Mira Verhoeve X Dirk Vaessen

Mira Verhoeve is an interdisciplinary performer who addresses themes of affect, radical care and consolation. Through poetry, performance and theory she tries to reconstruct the relation between the personal and the political. Dirk Vaessen is a designer who creates concepts and items for and around the human body. With his work he likes to advocate for an exploration of identity outside of societal norms and expectations. In this first collaboration, Mira and Dirk come together in their love for a playful approach of simple shapes and accessible materials, centering the vulnerable human body in their designs and performances.

ULKAAN

ULKAAN is a collaboration between Kaan Hiçyilmaz and Ulkuhan Akgul. Kaan’s work emerges from the reciprocation between the human body (self) and the built environment, in which he investigates elements of control directed to affect one’s physical and mental conditioning. His work contextualizes as critical storytelling, using tools of writing, moving image, prop making, and performance. As a multidisciplinary designer, Ulkuhan combines fashion and digital media to explore how identity, politics, and social issues intersect. His work challenges rigid systems of meaning, particularly those that impose fixed identities on bodies, based solely on their visual appearance.

WEEF.collective X Roumans

Based in her Arnhem studio, Sophie Roumans’ garments seamlessly merge precise tailoring with conceptual design. Beyond mere aesthetics, they serve as a commentary on society, providing a critical perspective while featuring sustainable, locally crafted pieces that navigate the delicate equilibrium between art and fashion. WEEF.collective is formed by the artistic duo Lieve Fikkers & Hélène Vrijdag who create durational weaving performances and textile installations inspired by mythology, ecofeminism and rave sets. Their practice is a celebration of transdisciplinary art, bundling their different expertise. Lieve is a visual artist and productional girlboss, Hélène is a musician and academic in Gender Studies. Their art is a radical reaction to fast fashion, with a dream to become a zero waste textile performance organization. Their performances are connecting to the question: What the hell does it mean to weave as a feminist in the 21st century?

Manka Menga X Katharina Spitz

Manka Menga is a poet and visual artist who challenges learned internalized misinformation through her work. Conceptual designer Katharina Spitz has a background in couture dressmaking. From a feminist and material-oriented perspective she explores social conflicts of our time such as change, misogyny and alienation. Manka and Katharina both raise questions about womanhood, longing for ritual and the place of the physical body in space and time. Both are inspired by women, who through their defiance of societal norms, achieved a place in history books and the hearts and minds of society.

Naza Løtus x The Nightmare Disorder

Naza Løtus is a Taiwanese drag artist, designer and one of the founding members of the House of Lostbøis, the Netherlands' first drag king house. Exploring themes such as East Asian identity, religion and migration, Naza combines drag with other art forms for storytelling across clubs, theaters, exhibitions, and museums. Costume design studio The Nightmare Disorder creates worlds where the boundaries between imagination and reality, fear and joy, individuality and othering are constantly explored, blurred, and broken. With character building as a starting point for artistic projects, their vision translates into multiple expressions and disciplines, mainly fashion and costume design, set design, film and live performances.

The final result at FASHIONCLASH Festival 2024