Title: Transgender
Subject: The theme of ‘Transgender’ refers to the process of transformation and change, where things are constantly in flux or are caught at a moment of metamorphosis.
Transgender’ represents the moment of the metamorphosis of the male shirt into a female dress. It also depicts the transformation of one gender identity into another.
Hien has been inspired by Alice Maher’s exhibition ‘Becoming’, where we see figures transform, grow, shrink, dissolve and metamorphose while the traces of their earlier forms remain visible. In the series of works entitled ‘The Thicket’, 1991, we see an adolescent girl wrestle with the challenges of becoming an adult.
Hien has used a plastic grid to form the thorax before starting to sew the pieces to make the dress. The thorax form is covered by the crochet technique. The initial idea was to set the figure on a table but this presented a problem in that one grid was not enough to keep the structure upright, so she had to add an extra grid with metal wire in between. Eventually, she decided to set the thorax on the wall as it better displays the crochet details at the end of the thorax and the waves of the cloth depicting motion and movement.
Media and Technique: Yarns, fabric, plastic grid, and metal wire. Sewing, knitting and crochet techniques.
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