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Project Synopsis

A Love Letter to Nature serves as a case study of different artists, their relationship to their work, and their relationship to their sense of self. It’s an investigation of what we find beautiful & worthy of creative expression and an ode to honesty as we navigate the stress that came with the sociopolitical disruption of the pandemic. It also explores the anxiety-inducing reality of the art & design industries. Comprised of two main parts and a zine, A Love Letter to Nature is finalized with the episodic podcast Advance Guard and a hand-designed corset made by Zo V. Fielder.

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The corset is a materialized fantasy of different elements that’s core to Fielder’s work and pulls from some of the discussions in the podcast. Composed of up-cycled materials both sourced online and collected over the years, the corset is Fielder’s personal investigation of what she finds the most beautiful. Drawing inspiration from images she collected over the years featured in Look Up!, this garment is a trinket box of candied tchochkes, featuring a hand-embroidered centerpiece at the heart of the corset with glass beads, freshwater pearls, and preserved butterflies. The silhouette of the corset also draws inspiration from 80’s Mugler, 00’s Lee for Alexander McQueen, and the fashion references that can be found in the local drag scene.

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The Advance Guard Podcast is a project developed over the duration of the BOND Hardware & POWRPLNT Sustainable Design Young Creative Residency. The project is accompanied by tangible outcomes which have been debuted at Bler Magazine's 'Mind Your Femme' exhibition on July 16th.

 

This podcast episode features Brooklyn-based painter and draftswoman Dhaynne Torres and New York City based image maker and draftswoman Esme Eldridge. The title Advance Guard is a reference to the french fashion term Avant Garde which is defined as “Forward thinking, especially pertaining to the arts”. The choice to go with the english translation of this term which is defined as an actual advance party of troops, is meant to divert from a fashion-centric point of view and be more inclusive to all that are artistically disciplined and share the same experience. It aims to give a platform to artists that seem to be pushing the envelope in their own practices, all while giving viewers the representation we have yet to find more of in these creative industries.

 

Each artist is asked to introduce themselves, asked about what the most beautiful thing they’ve seen is, and asked to go in-depth about their relationship to their work. Despite the vastly different approaches and point of views, there is a sense of commonality in the transformative experience of navigating the Covid19 pandemic; no one is the same person they were coming in to the 2020 new year. There’s also a sense of isolation when you couple this experience with trying to navigate the art & design world too, as there are still very real socioeconomic barriers that limit accessibility to artists of certain demographics. The podcast aims to bring all of these thoughts to spotlight and tell artists and viewers alike that community can be found in these very intimate & complex moments.

 

All of the sourced images and video clips are used for educational purposes. Watch the episode here on youtube.

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