I have admired Bunny Kinney for a while now as he is the editor in chief of Dazed but I was so enthralled by Samuel Ross when he spoke about what informed his work. As a multi disciplinary artist he spoke about living in the Midlands and being from a working class family which is the same as myself. I felt a connection with him speaking about contrasting worlds (which is what I spoke to Vicky about in my last tutorial) and how fashion is the most visceral medium with which to communicate a social ideology and it needs to be political because it reaches millions of people on a day-to-day basis. This has inspired me to look more at streetwear designers as their work is politically charged.
- Samuel operates within the fields of product design, fashion design and installation art – having built a strong aesthetic and philosophy often summarised as ‘Material Study for Social Architecture’.
- A COLD WALL – inspired by race, architecture and class, the brand is described as ‘installation and performance art through the lens of clothing, sound and sculpture’.
- Buoyancy between London and rural areas – contrast between those two worlds which informed a lot of work in A COLD WALL to be quite visceral and panoramic, being able to capture nuances of the country from a POC perspective but also villages and cities overlapping.
- Education was seen as a gateway in my household. Adjacent relationship to garment and design throughout my life and I have an affinity for product which started quite young.
- Emotional response – coming from a working class family and not having the money to attain these objects.
- The duality of being Black – British, built through lived experience.
- Communicate between the two and translate across the two worlds, building elements of a more socialist world – heavy narratives in the work I produce.
- Over-arching theme of a more altruistic world. Why I believe in socialising public space and these heavy narratives.
- SS 19 show – breakthrough show. There was a series of critical thought behind this work and idea of protagonist and the article being a white body vs a black body which changes the dynamic of how black artists are perceived and changes the authority or permission given for one to be an artist – changing the dynamic of expectancy.
- Multi-disciplinary grapple of identifying oneself as an artist but using different mediums to communicate the art.
- Reflecting on socio-geographic nuances as the foundation. Looking at how specific materials often correlate with state of mind and location. Social commentary of moving between different spaces.
- Mechanism of ideas and philosophy should emanate in the form of a tangible product. Fashion and garment and product is the most visceral and tangible way to communicate your ideology.
- Design philosophy – ‘a material study for social architecture’. Primarily based on my narrative, the buoyancy between class systems and primarily explaining that reality. The niche does exist within the UK and globally, it’s this phenomenon of an accelerated middle class happening due to globalisation and access through the internet.
- This idea that the inanimate materials and buildings that we interact with on a daily basis inform so much of our emotional being. So for example, ‘Material Study for social architecture’ from a collection perspective may filter into a study into the elements of water particles and how water induces life but also brings instability.
- Looking at and extracting components of raw material and compounds and finding out how we react emotionally, for example the relationship humanity has with clay and has had for the last 45000-60000 years. Finding a way to talk about that relationship through garments or installation would be a talking point of how that mission statement relates to ‘A-Cold-Wall’.
- Mystifying resonance that comes in the form of architecture and sculpture and this idea of still object being dead and inanimate but also encapsulating so much life and movement. It’s this idea of creating a time lapse through a still object. The magnitude of scale, how scale can often reflect the capacity for ones imagination and the sense of belief and challenge.
- The process is steeped in.. it almost starts with a case study (what is worth discussing and taking physical resources to emanate and talk about regarding not just society, but humanity at this point).
- ‘How can one answer questions through physicality and movement?’ This question is where Installation starts for me.
- Socialism and capitalism and how the two can bind and work together.
- Industrial design, asymmetry and beauty and how that ties into certain movements such as dada and bauhaus and postmodernism in the form of industrial architecture. Nuance of emotion and inspiration tied into history.
- I tend to be inspired mainly by Literature and steer clear of found objects or existing imagery and as its so easy for this to find its way into your design via your subconscious.