The Weather Diaries
3rd Nordic Fashion Biennale
22 March–22 June 2014
Museum Angewandte Kunst
Schaumainkai 17
60594 Frankfurt / Main
Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm,
Wednesday 10am–8pm
T +49 69 212 34037
F +49 69 212 30703
info.angewandte-kunst [at] stadt-frankfurt.de
From March to June, Frankfurt am Main will follow in the footsteps of Reykjavík and Seattle as host to the Nordic House of Iceland’s 3rd Nordic Fashion Biennale, introducing young-generation fashion-makers and established designers from Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The exhibition The Weather Diaries at the Museum Angewandte Kunst will form the core of the biennial, which will also offer an international symposium on Friday, 21 March, as well as workshops and events.
Raw nature and extreme weather characterize the everyday lives and shape the imaginations of the Nordic countries’ inhabitants. Far enough away from the metropolises and fashions of the haute couture, they have preserved natural access to their own resources, for example in the use of sheep’s wool on the Faroe Islands and Iceland or of Arctic fox fur, fish skin and sealskin in Greenland. As part of the cultural identity, traditional materials, techniques and patterns represent no contradiction to the present-day fashion and creativity of the region’s young designers.
The exhibition The Weather Diaries will introduce these designers to an international public and, in its contemplation of western Nordic creativity, raise questions: What does it mean to be a designer in places that seem so far remote from the western metropolises and their ever-changing fashions? What does sustainability mean in this context? And what role does the preservation of cultural heritage play in the creative work currently being carried out by these designers?
In addition to the designs, the focus will be directed above all towards the designers’ concepts and sources of inspiration as illustrated by works of which the majority are being created especially for the Frankfurt show. The latter will feature clothing, but also spatial and audio installations as well as a film by the Faroe artist duo Rammatik and—on the evening of the opening—a performance by Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir of Iceland, a.k.a. Shoplifter. All of these works are situated in the borderlands between design and art. The exhibition curators Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer are staging the clothing and objects in close cooperation with the designers. They are also photographing them, and the resulting images—influenced by Romanticist paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—will accompany the visitors on their journey through the exhibition. In the process, The Weather Diaries will delve deep into the worlds of the designers of the far North, telling stories about fashion and its function as an expression of cultural identity off the beaten track in a region dominated by the weather.
With
Mundi (IS), STEiNUNN (IS), JÖR by Guðmundur Jörundsson (IS), Kría (IS), Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir a.k.a. Shoplifter (IS), Guðrun & Guðrun (FOE), Barbara I Gongini (FOE), Rammatik (FOE), Bibi Chemnitz (GL), Najannguaq Lennert (GL), Nikolaj Kristensen (GL) and Jessie Kleemann (GL)
Director: Matthias Wagner K
Curators: Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer
Exhibition director: Mahret Kupka
Presented by The Nordic House Iceland in cooperation with the Museum Angewandte Kunst
Press contact:
Dorothee Maas and Julia Quedzuweit
T +49 69 212 32828 / 73243 / F +49 69 212 30703 / presse.angewandte-kunst [at] stadt-frankfurt.de