Art in Embassies
Selected by the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program, as part of AIE’s 50th anniversary celebration, Melissa designed an arts curriculum to collaborate with renowned visual artist and dancer, Nick Cave, in a special Artist Exchange presentation.
The collaboration included a Corcoran College of Art + Design course on fashion design and social engagement, an ArtReach class at THEARC, and a culminating performance piece. Undergraduate students from CCAD’s Wear.Strut.Occupy collaborated with the Corcoran ArtReach Master Class students in the ArtReach community studio to create compelling suits inspired by the artist Nick Cave. Working with the college students, ArtReach students explored the fabrication of sound suit-inspired suits and incorporating them into a choreographed performance with dancers from the Washington Ballet combining movement and sound.
Wear.Strut.Occupy.
Exploring notions of costuming, fashion, sculpture, performance, and wearer/performer. Reasons to wear anything are varied and manifold: to conceal, to reveal, to camouflage or disguise; for protection or to project power or threat; for the purpose of modesty or exhibitionism; to communicate an idea or establish identity, to enhance or impede movement, to express beauty, to impress or to shock.
The exhibition approached the broadest possible definition of clothing and adornment as a vehicle to explore the relationship between the individual, the material and the environment.
Working one-on-one with the Corcoran College of Art and Design students and the ArtReach Master Class students at THEARC, participants created compelling and wearable pieces. During the semester-long class, students explored the fabrication of sound suit-inspired suits incorporating them into a performance combining movement and sound. The original hand-crafted suits were fitted to the Washington Ballet dancers for the choreographed performance.
The suits came alive during a performance at THEARC in celebration of the Art in Embassies U.S. Department of State’s 50th Anniversary.
Soundsuit Video