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New Fashion Order: dissolution14 March - 1 April 2005Montri Toemsombat [Thailand] |
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Performance
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Preparation
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Other Work by the Artist
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Montri Toemsombat |
Montri Toemsombat |
Montri Toemsombat |
Montri Toemsombat |
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Essay
Transfiguring the interior of the RMIT Project Space gallery into an expansive, meditative field, Thai artist Montri Toemsombat’s New Fashion Order: Dissolution seeks to create a quiet space of contemplation amidst the frenzy of the 2005 Melbourne Fashion Festival.
Buddhism is central to New Fashion Order:Montri engages the centuries-old principles of Buddhism as established before its institutionalisation into the various forms of religion – from Japanese Zen to Tibetan Lamaism – for which it is perhaps best known today in the Western world. Central to Buddhist knowledge is comprehending the impermanence of the world – the world constructed from the division and oppositions of human consciousness – and a continuing process of transformation through meditation.
Montri’s installation, a field of saffron coloured monk’s robes, cover the gallery floor in a vast and unbroken field, stretching up to cover one wall and extending across the ceiling of the space. This expanse of mass-produced garments, a succinct representation of the directives and rituals which have proliferated around Buddhism, is slowly being undone by hundreds of rice plants, which sprout and grow through the fabric. Montri’s installation gently undoes the work which was put into these garments, dissolving their status as objects of tradition and the imposed order which perpetuates the division between nature and culture. As time passes and the exhibition progresses, this growth further unravels the garments, setting in motion a gradual process of dissolution which echoes the principles of Buddhist meditation: breaking down the duality between nature and culture, body and spirit, and the categories we deploy to structure the world.
In the context of the Melbourne Fashion Festival, New Fashion Order:Dissolution reminds us of the ultimate meaning of fashion as a status symbol and highly fetishised icon of consumerism and its inherent vacuity.The installation strives towards a space which reclaims the basic tenets of Buddhism in a contemporary context.By doing so, Montri presents a place of meditation in which boundaries are dissolved, the transitory nature of all human construction is contemplated and the possibilities of transformation become gradually apparent.
Catalogue
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