Better Lives Blog 1:
In the context of the Better Lives unit I have seen many interesting lectures, but especially the one on ‘Democracy and Activism’ by Professor Lucy Orta captivated me. As I’ve been interested in politics and social movements since my early teenage years the title of the lecture directly caught my eye.
Orta opened the lecture with an overview of her work as a visual artist at Studio-Orta. She went deeper into the stories of those sections of her work that relate to her interest in fashion. However, she has also emphasized that this is only one component of her work and that other sections deal with further questions on major topics such as water, environment, migration and mobility.
At the beginning of her career in 1994 Orta worked on the project ‘Refuge Wear’. Hearing about it from the artist behind it herself, I found this part of the lecture particularly intriguing. The project was born out of a period of severe economic recession (recession of the 90s) after the Gulf War, which resulted in many people losing their jobs (including Orta herself who was a fashion designer in Paris) and the huge increase of homeless people on the streets.With these predominant conditions in mind, Orta created ‘Refuge wear’ which consists of a variety of designs of sleeping bags, bivouacs and tents that have the ability to quickly transform into items of clothing. These designs opened up the possibility to literally wear your shelter (for example as a backpack) and move around with it – different shelters work differently in terms of their transform ability. Starting this project Orta worked experimentally and without the pressure of it having any commercial outcome. She considered her Designs to be a socially aware project shining light on the homeless situation in Paris- so more like provocative prototypes rather than something actually going into industry. In 1994 though the Paris based Salvation Army homeless shelter exhibited Lucy Ortas’ work. I was touched when learning that the reactions to the exhibit of those who lived in the Salvation Army at this time were really positive, because they were the people who could actually identify with the central issue portrayed by the project, and as “living without shelter for a long time, rapidly detoriates your mental health and causes stress and disocialization” as Orta stated, it made the positive reaction even more valuable.
With this in mind I read a description of ‘Refuge Wear` by art curator Jérôme Sans on the Studio-Orta website that seemed particularly fitting to me. It provides a little insight into some parts of the Philosophy and thinking behind this socially relevant project. Sans states: “[Lucy Ortas’] Refuge Wear openly manifests man’s procedures of space definition, that is to say, how he produces his spatial condition. The Habitant, being a necessary element of an individuals need for a minimum personal space, allows the wearer to isolate himself from the world and create a place of reflection and meditation; a closed, four-dimensional universe.”
When learning that her skills can be useful to other people Orta started workshops in the salvation army, making clothes out of discarded items. This made her one of the first designers to work with recycled clothing and it since has evolved into a social enterprise where people all over the world are provided with training and skills and can work together through the process of creativity of making clothes. I am really inspired and impressed by how Lucy Orta created something so positively impactful on people in need with little finance and resources at the beginning and how she did it without the goal of profit and success but rather using her artistic and design skills for doing good.