"Wearable Art – Unseen Threads" – nipponese task Joanna Hawrot is simply a textile memory archive and a manifesto of what culture exhibited and decided to hide. The installation consisting of 30 fashion objects, artistic fabrics and fresh media turned the luxury Daimaru Center – a place with respective 100 years of tradition associated with the production and sale of conventional kimion – into a multimedia gallery. About the variant of femininity and fact in the artistic way of life and reasoning with Joanna Hawrot, the author of the project, talks Alicja Hunter-Definite.
Alicia Fighter-Definite: How did Osaka take you?
Joanna Hawrot: For the first time I flew to Osaka last November. I rapidly realized that my memories were closely related to Tokyo and its intensity. Osaka, in turn, is simply a more peaceful place. She welcomed me very kindly – especially since we went there to carry out a task with women and about womanhood. erstwhile I visited Osaka for the second time and nipponese journalists asked me about the impressions of this city, I said I was planning to decision there and live.
What is it about Osaka that got you so fast?
I think it's not even about the city itself, it's about Japan. He resonates with me in many aspects of thinking, approach to art, task implementation, aesthetics, sense, canon. I feel like somewhere on the intellectual level I'm from. I was inactive in Japan before the pandemic, so this return after years made me more convinced that it was my place on earth.
There were times erstwhile you felt cultural differences.?
There are hard moments in all project, and I remember that he came in ours. I callback a very crucial conversation with our nipponese producer, who looked at me with quite a few attention, saw sadness on my face, a kind of anxiety, fatigue. The nipponese do not ask straight about emotions, but she looked at me and said only that in Japan it is unthinkable that individual puts individual in a situation or causes situations that can consequence in specified discomfort and specified anxiety. And that's erstwhile I thought, this is the cultural difference that, I think, is the most apparent thing about social relations.
How did the nipponese respond to your project?
Above all, they approached him with large assurance and openness. From the beginning, I felt that they were very keen on specified an experiment, this kind of challenge. Remember, we worked from 2 different places in the world. The nipponese side had its share, we had ours, and at the very end we were expected to meet on a common platform of the exhibition. And to be honest, the effect amazed both sides. The nipponese were amazed that the imagination that was presented to them was realized in specified a faithful way. The effect was better than expected, which coincided with my impressions.
It is simply a unusual situation that they so withdrawn, most frequently worshiping conservative situations and solutions in both fashion and art, abruptly get an exhibition that is intense, colorful, multilayered, surprising. It's hard to control due to the fact that it's spread all over the centre of Daimaru. It consists of photographs, objects, masks and theatrical situations arranged in windows. This could all seem very European, and it is shown in Japan and works perfectly. I got this information from our maker that the nipponese band walks all the floors all day and looks so attentively at these works. They experience it, they experience it, they are curious in going deeper. I feel that I actually felt that this exhibition was for the nipponese audience and that he would benefit from it.
What is most crucial to you in this exhibition present erstwhile we are already after the beginning and it begins to enter into dialog with the recipients?
I am convinced that decently implemented art and fashion can actually bring us closer together, overcome any distance, not only aesthetic, cultural, human. I feel like that was the project. Tools that were utilized for the exhibition: costumes, multimedia, arranged situations caused certain emotions that are meant to bring us closer together and to aid us feel and express our emotions. At first I thought this presumption was high-flying. But after the exhibition materialized and I received further comments from the nipponese – both men and women – which is very interesting at all!
Why?
At first I was directed at the reception. It turns out that for men, the things we talk about are just as important. It was the most amazing to me. I was told that the nipponese first spoke about their feelings, feelings, impressions. And I have the impression that the success of this exhibition is just to trigger feelings.
How did you address the social construct of various types of womanhood? You and Zuza Krajewska prepared 2 photograph sessions.
Yeah. I invited a female to the project, who represent different variants of femininity – diversified both through age, profession, sexual orientation or performed professions. On this side of Japan, we wanted to get closer to nipponese women's society and show a cross section: from the elderly, the teenager, to the transcendent. However, as part of the Warsaw edition of the project, we invited trans people to cooperate and it was a very strong experience for me due to the fact that I realized that I knew very small about specified a release of womanhood. We captured the process of performing femininity. I feel like it was the first so bold campaign. A leaking experience, erstwhile a scope of 12 characters penetrate, complements. My choices in this area were not accidental. Each of these characters appeared in the task for a reason, contributed to it. Together with Zuza Krajewska we look at these characters in a delicate way. We give them time. I stood at the media site late at night, after the exhibition opened, I watched people walk through these sites at night, how they stop, how these works keep their attention. How curious are they looking at our project... I felt that this voice was an crucial voice that was being listened to, that sounded. This is what happens erstwhile you are simply honest with yourself, honest in your work, in your art, and actually want to learn something, above all about yourself, and then share it with others.
In your works you mention to the Polish School of Fabrics, creating fashion interpretations of the objects of Magdalena Abakanowicz and Wojciech Sadley. Was it an apparent choice erstwhile the Adam Mickiewicz Institute invited you to participate in this project?What came into your head erstwhile you heard the Expo – Osaka – Hawrot?
At first, I was amazed by the proposal and the scale of the project, which grew twice during its implementation. The proposal for cooperation with the Central Textile Museum appeared in the process. I've never worked with objects before. I was more of a creator. It was another fresh component in this project. I've been fascinated by artistic fabric for years, so I was very happy with this idea. Without wasting time, I went on a local imagination to see the Łódź harvest. I rapidly became certain it was the right way. The election of Wojciech Sadley and Magdalena Abakanowicz was carried out intuitively, analyzing all works in the collections of the museum. These just resonated with me. I never discuss with my own emotions, I know what will work well in fabric and in projects. The choice was decided by concrete work. erstwhile I started reading about them, it turned out that Sadley's shroud cycle was talking about working trauma, war experiences. There was no choice in this case. Magdalena Abakanowicz, in turn, is simply a double challenge – plan and artistic – to measurement with legend. Finally, it was about creating spatial adaptation of work, but in 2D perspective, flat, on fabric. I worked on this plan the longest – these are blue, navy patterns and digital patches. It brought me quite a few satisfaction. Working with these stories, the anticipation of taking specified excellent works to the workshop was very developing for me.
Who's Joanna Hawrot today?
I think that I am inactive a female who follows the way of emotion, intuition and goes there and after what she feels and what nourishes her – this is my azimuth, which I translate not only into work, but besides into life. The fact is and will be my priority. It's to be honest, authentic and to have a voice in art, in fashion for a reason. For this voice to substance not only to me, but besides to be readable to my audience. It's a strong framework for me to feel safe.
Today we are talking in Warsaw, but shortly you will return to Osaka and carry out another task there. What will it be?
The Ministry of Culture prepared 2 proposals under the EXPO 2025 cultural programme. 1 is my exhibition, which we talked about, or "Wearable Art – Unseen Threads", and the another is an installation Polonia x Skłodowska – Curie’s Magic Lab. The Power of Migration. Yuriko Sasaoki retells the communicative of the Polish Nobel laureate as a symbol of migration of ideas and knowledge. For the task I prepared costumes, fabric, and co-directed performance with Marta Ziółek. It amazed me very much due to the fact that for years Maria Curie-Skłodowska was my superhero and she came back to me. I remember perfectly well that I had specified a strong request to hang her large poster in my apartment. Then I read any of her biography. So I'm truly excited. On the occasion of the invitation, I came up with an thought that I suggested to Martha Herbek to summon Mary's ghost. Marta, as an excellent performer, with whom I have besides worked for years, will be the individual conducting both this screening and Mary's voice. We are now in rehearsals, in preparation, and we are wondering what Maria Skłodowska would like to tell us present what she would like to talk about. We know it was a prominent figure, a scholar, but it was besides a parent who raised another strong woman, 1 of whom was another Nobel Prize-winning. I'm crazy glad we can work with Maria's ghost and that I have a chance to go back to Osaka.
And it's besides specified a wonderful buckle, that one more time specified femininity appears, very progressive, very emancipative and very volatile.
With women, the calling of various women began, and it will end with recalling the spirit of Maria Skłodowska, which, I have the impression, will be ours. superhero This event. It turns out that we all meet somewhere at the end and that for me – as I think about this full task now, about these 2 projects – it is specified a return to the female tribe, the female circle. Of course, in fashion and artistic, performance. In the end, there is simply a group of women who through their work, art heals, says, discovers and resonates. It's been a rough trip. I feel like it's very crucial to me personally. All these meetings, talks, many hours of editing, exhibitions, talking about different subjects, problems, situations, tears of sadness and joy – that's all the time for me to create, about this peculiar way of life. If we can live like this and devote time to things that are crucial not only to us, but besides to others who are next to us, then I feel that then we win this life.
The “Joanna Hawrot. Wearable Art – Unseen Threads” task is part of the cultural programme accompanying the planet Expo 2025 organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. It is estimated that 128 million visitors from 161 countries will visit the Expo Osaka. "Wearable Art – Unseen Threads" will be available from May 31 to June 24, 2025.
