Armoured Bodies explores clothing through a feminist lens, considering how it can be both a form of expression and protection for vulnerable bodies.
The body exists as a site of social power that obliges clothing to be its accomplice. Bodies with fewer social privileges are more likely to experience physical and sexual violence, with clothing having the ability to victimise or shield the wearer. Young adults are most vulnerable given their engagement with social environments and experimentation with self-expression.
Artworks by Filipino-American artist Stephanie Syjuco and Birmingham arts-based collective Calico prompt opportunities to consider relationships between the body, clothing, safety and agency. An installation by Syjuco, originally shown in 2009, has been recontextualised as Anti-Factory Exeter, allowing viewers to engage in a sewing factory to rethink their relationship to personal agency, self-expression, mass consumption, and ethical labour. The video Look Sharp by Calico directly confronts the needle spiking epidemic and the British government’s inaction towards making spiking a criminal offence. This exhibition grapples with the question, how can clothing be complicit in perpetuating cultural violence while also being a source of self-expression and freedom?
ARTISTS
Calico is an award-winning, Birmingham-based arts and activism collective, co-creating artistic campaigns with local communities.
Stephanie Syjuco works in photography, sculpture and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations.
CURATORS
Ella Bradbury is a curator and writer from Winchester, Hampshire interested in exploring presentations of the female, queer and gendered body in contemporary art.
Sophia Foster is a curator and poet from Knoxville, Tennessee, most interested in socially engaged and feminist art practices.
