Time flies in this workshop. On the third
day, every women spoke about how they think about uniform and their job based
on questions given from Pascale the day before. I could not be there, so I listened the tape of their
conversation. Day by day, women spend
more and more time for this workshop. First two hours, turned three hours, then
four hours, five hours, and even more! “They just want to saty”. As Pascale
says. they are never pushed to work long, they just want to continue discussing
or working together.
In order to re define what uniform is,
women spoke about their experience while they are working in museums. For
example, they need to stop audiende photographing when it is not allowed. They
need to tell audience to stay away from the work. Because of these tasks some
people get angry, behave rude to them. Or some people behave as if they did not
hear anything from them. This kind of experience make guards sad, since they
feel they are transparent existence, not even human being.
What the uniform is for? Somone answered”No1 priority is for the
museum , No2 for the guards, No3 for myself, and then for the audience.”
Pascale “No1 is not for you?”
Pascale mentioned that she wants women to
feel joy, delight, beauty, and respect when they imagine their new uniform.
“Joy is important. Since this exhibition is about joy and delight. There is a
lot of freedom in this exhibition. Please do not take too seriously the system
you live with now.” To make something that you can say ‘it is fun to wear
this!.’ is quite important. Please imagine the cloth that you can run to the
man whom you love.
It is funny but what she said to encourage
guard women to imagine freely about what they want to wear, “the clothes that
you can run to the man whom you love”. Recently I heard similar story from
Keisuke Kanda who also gives installation in this exhibition. He explained to
me that he designs for girls. It is not his vision or his image that are put
importance on when he designs his clothes for. Instead, he just want to make
girls laugh wearing his clothes, and he wants to let the girls imagine
themselves walking in front of men they loves.
For me who is turning 50 in coming few
years, I honestly feel distance from this kind of earge, which is a pitty, but
still I smile when I heard Pascale saying this to everyone. She pushes the
button to release themselves. She is encouraging everyone to feel more free.
Mizuki, the curator of this exhibition told
guard women “what you are doing in this workshop would be symbol of this
exhibition.” Pascale continued “ It is beyond symbol. It is something that
shows spirit of this exhibiton. You would create that you feel good , safe ,
and confident with yourself. Also, to push a little bit your boundary is important.”
“Life flows and continues. It is not always
same. Therefore, you always need to find new form which fits to your life. Each
of us is an artist. We can decide the
shapes of what we want to have in our lives.”