Day 4 Lost and Found

 Women brout clothes they love, possibly cutted out and transfered to their future uniform. Long discussion continued with Yukari as a moderator. Each of them talked freely, spontaneously. The balance of uniformity and individuality was difficult in turned out. It seemed difficult to put individuality in the uniform, since they regarded individuality is not needed in the uniform. The discussion went with excitement, and at some point, lost. Pascale pointed out something, and then everone became vital, again. 

I can imagine, to change is challenging. Sometimes it takes time to accept new idea about life. Still, women kept participating the conversation quite spontaneously, enthusiastically.

Finally, after a long discussion, they found a way to go on. It was a magical moment, a friend of mine who were attending the workshop on that day, confessed me later. What she saw: Pascale said something when women felt lost, with her one word or one action, everybody changed their mood and moved quickly to a new direction!

Day 3 Joy and Delight

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.”

Day 5

We decided on a form !

First designs

Day 4

Day 3

Art Tower Mito Uniform designed by Hanae Mori, President Mito Arts Foundation

Day 2 Incredibly Honest

Day 2

The mood of this workshop. Positive, spontaneous, relaxed, tense. Everybody is incredibly honest and sincere.

Pascale:

First day, you talked about emotional clothes. Today, please talk about the clothes you put today: what you always wear at home when you do not see people.  What is special quality of them? Is it physical quality? Or emmotional quality? Social quality? Please start from whoever want to speak.

Questions Pascal gave to them. And some answers.

Q Is it extention of your body after years? Is it also already a tool?

Q Can you wear it 24 hours?

--Yes sometimes I sleep with them. I can go out by changing only the T shirt and go out with same outfit next day.

Q Do you have friends with similar style?

Q How od you feel about your height?  A challenge?  Have you difficulties in schoold days because of your height?

--Yes often. I always wss standing on the back. I got specific nickname because of my heights”

Pascale “Within two days we heard how powerful clothes are. You feel insecure when you feel you are not wearing suitable clothes.” This is emotion that I know quite well in relation to fashion or clothes or dressing. Maybe this is the most strong emotion-that you feel you made mistakes, doing  something wrong, feeling embarrassed, because of the way how you dress. In my own life, I often feel disappointed that I feel so weak because of this reason ( no suitable clothes), and I feel I need more courage. I understood now that we, somehow, all live with, share,  this kind of experience.