To dress while bound, 2025, Tokyo and Seoul

This workshop explores the physical tension that arises when the act of wearing socks and the act of wearing clothes collide. The facilitator prepares two shirt fragments with socks pre-attached and presents a knitted piece that connects them. Participants must pin the structure together in a way that allows it to be worn—ultimately forming new, wearable shapes such as pants or skirts.

The shirt fragments, originally functional garments, now act as constraints due to their structural assumptions and visual associations. Yet these constraints become the starting point for imagining new ways of wearing. In devising how to wear these deactivated pieces, participants reconfigure the relationship between body and garment.

Rather than simply transforming clothing through DIY methods, this workshop investigates the physical and conceptual conditions that shape wearability. The resulting garments are no longer shirts, but wearable structures formed in response to specific bodily conditions and gestures.

After the workshop, these garments are re-worn by gallery staff as aprons. The sock-related modifications remain intact, and the act of wearing them unfolds as a new kind of performance within the everyday movements of the exhibition space.

Ultimately, this workshop examines how the condition of "unwearability" can be transformed into new modes of wear, and how physical constraints can act as catalysts for creative response.

Participants: 

Oru, YAMAMOTO Artist, based in Tokyo 

Tatsuru, HATAYAMA Artist, based in Tokyo

Locations:

Musashino Art University, Tokyo

Mi-Ta-Me, Tokyo

Facilitated by SEHIKYO

*This workshop was presented as part of <Future Crafts: Beyond the Present>, an exhibition organised by 'Contributors' and held from May 16 to 25, 2025, at 문화역서울 284 RTO and the KCDF Gallery in Seoul, Korea. The exhibition was hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, organised by the Korea Craft & Design Foundation, and supported by the Arts Council Korea.