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For her solo exhibition Wearable Nations - European Outfits at The Factory of Art and Design, Małgorzata Markiewicz presents a new take on the national costume. The artist has created a new series of outfits for citizens of the EU countries, each design paying tribute to the differences between the states and populations of Europe.
Markiewicz’s printed textiles deploy the minimalist shorthand of the pictogram, redesigning the letters E & U. The clothing template is also simple – unisex, unifabric, no frills. Where each outfit differs, is in its complex, abstract textile design – a visual language that dismantles linguistic barriers.
The meaning of clothing is a recurring theme in Markiewicz’s work. Unlike the transient, disposable culture of fashion, clothes can be seen to weave the fabric of memory. As the historian Philippe Perrot writes, clothes are comparable with language – a complex structure of meaning and syntax generated in social and geographical space.
Traditional European national costumes are no longer in everyday use. Most of us probably only remember them from the small dolls that populated airports and children’s rooms like tiny envoys from foreign countries. But looking at Europeans today, can we really distinguish a Dane from a Dutchman or a Pole from a Swede by their clothing?
The abolition of trade barriers in the EU has brought multinational retail outlets like H&M and Topshop to the high streets of most European cities: Off-the-rack continental uniformity masquerading as free-market choice. As the artist herself says:
“On a trip to Slovenia I met a person wearing exactly the same outfit as me. The same thing happened in Finland. Does this mean that we are all Europeans now? We can’t identify nation through clothing anymore.”
Markiewicz’s new national costumes can be seen as resisting this visual standardisation – the increasing uniformity that threatens to disguise the differences between us:
“The more homogenous you try to make people, the more they will resist. We may look the same, but we’re not – and that’s no bad thing.”
Maria Gry Bregnbak, curator
Translated by Jane Rowley
The project is generously supported by
The EU Culture Programme
The City of Copenhagen
The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland
Opening on Friday, November 25, 5–8 pm. Welcome!
