Hankyul Joeng, HongKai Li and Jiwoo Lee

Hankyul Jeong is known for her experiments with food combined with interactive, audience-engaging installations. She enlisted her ArtEZ colleagues HongKai Li and Jiwoo Lee for this project. The three artists are exploring the use of food in fashion: “Just like with food, you can express your personality through clothing. Both are culturally and individually determined. The diversity in food and fashion culture is central to our project.”

Visitors can participate in putting together different panels into a look to their preference. So the looks have endless possibilities by replacing the panels. Patterns of woven images of food leather are applied to panels and show all the traces of “food immigration” that have influenced today’s society.

Melting Pot of Flavors and Dishes

“Through colonisation, many different foods and spices have been spread worldwide: potatoes, spices, as well as tomatoes, corn, and peppers. For example, kimchi is truly an iconic dish from Korea. If our ancestors hadn’t been colonised by Japan, we would never have come into contact with peppers. And without peppers, there would be no kimchi. Food immigration has created a melting pot of flavours and dishes.”

Mannequins

“Using a food dehydrator, we create ‘leather’ from food items. By extracting moisture, a leather-like material is formed. From this ‘food leather,’ we weave a new type of textile. We have printed this onto panels, allowing the audience to style an entirely new clothing look.

In our installation at Rozet, there are mannequins that visitors can dress with the panels. Thus, a new melting pot of garments is created.”

[interview: Nicole Beaujean | N.B tekst & advies]

Diversity in Food and Fashion Culture

Hankyul Jeong (Zuid-Korea), Base for Experiment, Art and Research (BEAR) Fine Art, ArtEZ (2023), HongKai Li (China), Fashion Design, ArtEZ (2023), Jiwoo Lee, (Zuid-Korea), textielontwerper/grafisch ontwerper.

State of Fashion curated by FDFA 2024 at Rozet: mannequins with garments made from food leather

titel: Food Immigration