| art.description.project | Due to the corona pandemic both the symposium and the exhibition became online events. Along with the curatorial work, Oyama worked as the artistic director: https://costumeagency.com/.
As the three-day-event, “Critical Costume 2020 Conference” opened on 21. August 2020, which accommodated 40 online working groups, where max.14 members attended. Prior to the implementations of the online working groups, two presenters uploaded their video presentation materials. Consequently, “Critical Costume 2020” produced 80 video clips that now serve as valuable archived education and research materials in the field of Costume Art.
“Costume Agency” exhibition invited artworks of 35 international artists. Oyama invited eight artists personally; the rest of the artists were selected after a public open call announced in the previous year, 2019.
Costume studies are often approached from a singular discipline, for example in theater, dance, fashion, fine art, film, and public art. The artistic research, Costume Agency stems from the discipline of costumes in theatre. As a craft and fine artist, I sought to participate into the artistic research through focusing on costume as the main medium that resonated and shaped the performance. I paid attention to roles of materials that shape costumes and performances, how costumes dictate performativity, and how costume artists work beyond their conventional roles as costume makers and designers, and engage in roles as a director, choreographer, script writer, and so on.
After collating thirty artists through a public open call in December 2019, I examined what kind of criticalities costumes and their enactments were capable of addressing. I then made the following two fundamental categories: “costumes as social skin” (visible extended organs) that communicate, articulate, negotiate socio-political agendas; and “costumes as initiators of new experiences” that evoke gestures in wearers, as the wearers gain enhanced multiple sensorial receptions through extended and exaggerated tactility, smell, sound, and weight of costumes. Based on the core two categories, I then created further eight categories in the exhibition: IDENTITY AGENCY, POLITICAL AGENCY, MATERIAL AGENCY, AGENCY OF SENSES AND SENSUALITY, EMOTIONAL AGENCY, AGENCY OF TECHNOLOGY, AGENCY OF BODY AND EXTENDED SPACE, AGENCY OF PLAY. | sv |
