The Frog and the Ox (2021)

Arts of Fashion Foundation – Summer Couture Residency, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

The 5 week couture residency with the Arts of Fashion Foundation, supports visiting textile and fashion practitioners develop creative projects with support from couture artisans from Chanel’s Métiers d’Art. I was invited to attend with a scholarship after winning the AoF International Competition.

Working from studios at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, artists were invited to create work inspired by our time with the archives of Couture ateliers at 19M. Which included Maisons Lemarié, Lesage and Lognon. Jean de La Fontaine’s fables also played a role, with each artist choosing a tale to bring to life.

The Frog and the Ox is tale of a frog that tries to inflate itself to the size of an ox, but bursts in the attempt. The story reminded me of Eleanor Antin’s 1972 ‘Carving: a Traditional Sculpture’, which then became central to the research.