High Visability (project in progress)

  

Because of my background as a costume designer, clothing (and more specifically, uniforms) has always played a big role in the way I deal with narrativity in my work. This I would like to research by further investigating High Visibility workwear, 'workies' (the workmen in workwear, mainly working on construction sites or on in public space) and the fetish community that solely is dedicated to outfits of 'workies'.

Through these topics I explore safety, objectivication, the transforming power of costume design and finding a niche fetish community. I want to research to whom our bodies actually belong: to the individual, to the capitalist machine or to a shared community and its undeniable conventions? Is our body trapped, in systems, in trauma?

I see enormous potential for poetry in High Vis clothing, perhaps because it gives light in the dark, perhaps because it is made to clearly communicate to its surrounding, perhaps because it protects its wearer, perhaps because it glorifies physical labour and thus, for me, refers to the construction of the systems in which we live, work and move, maybe because of the alarming nature of the Neon-colour and it’s flair for the dramatic. I'd like to call it camp, the High Vis clothing, pulling my questions back to a place of pleasure.