To dress while bound, 2025, Tokyo and Seoul

To dress while bound, 2025, Tokyo and Seoul

This workshop explores the physical tension that arises when the act of putting on socks meets the act of wearing clothes. Participants work while wearing a piece of shirt sewn with socks and the knit structure connecting them. The garment pieces lose their original position, pulling and catching at various parts of the body; participants fasten them together one by one with safety pins, gradually constructing a state in which the garment can barely be worn. The result is something closer to a temporary balance produced by the body moving within a constrained structure. The shirt pieces no longer wrap naturally around the torso, and the structure of the socks guides or resists certain postures and movements. Some connections hold, while others keep slipping or making movement feel awkward. Rather than completing the garment, participants negotiate between body and structure, leaving it in an unfinished state.

The finished construction does not fit neatly into the category of conventional clothing such as shirts or trousers. It can still be worn, yet it simultaneously hinders the body. It functions, and yet it keeps failing. Rather than proposing a new kind of garment, this work aims to reveal just how provisional and unstable the relationship between body and clothing truly is.

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.