EXHIBITION - TIMELESS SHOWROOM
Transforming Null Object into a world of stone to showcase the full Timeless collection for one week in Chinatown, New York City.
Empathy is something experiential. I’d been working on the TIMELESS collection for about 3 years and I made the clothes, I shot a lookbook and fashion film, and I shot several campaigns that helped me tell the story of clothing and geological deep time. But I wanted people to feel these clothes and the weight of stone that inspired the collection.
For my first showroom in New York City, I partnered with Null Object, a small gallery in Chinatown. The space is a blank canvas with a raw concrete floor with metallic steel walls and ceiling grid. It’s small and intimate. It became the perfect space for me to transform into a world of stone.
To encapsulate my clothing in stone, I sourced genuine stone to cover the walls and floor. For the walls, I partnered with Slate Lite and procured their panels of 1/2” slate that resemble the quarry walls at Stony Creek Quarry and the dye finishes of my garments. These highly innovative panels are lightweight and flexible, making them perfect for simple installation and temporary use. Given that the walls of Null Object are steel, I installed magnets to the back of the slate panels and attached them magnetically to the walls.
Leveraging my relationship with Stony Creek Quarry, I procured 2 tons of 1/4” granite aggregate from the quarry to cover the floor. The floor surface struck a balance between loose and compact, allowing you to feel the terrain shift beneath beneath your feet. The aim was to create a landscape for people to traverse and in many ways, this was about bringing the quarry experience into the city. I wanted landscape to be something you can feel.
Working closely with Duanna, we created a 1 hour long bespoke soundscape for the exhibition space that alluded to the violence of the dye process and the extraction of raw materials.