Fixation: Our Obsession with the Fashion Culture

Overview

I'd wager it's no coincidence that this exhibition is popping up at the same time as VAMFF. At a time when our city becomes a playground for the fashionable elite, our artists are also jumping to attention with questions. Namely, what is this whole process about, and what does it say about our sense of self?

Over three gallery spaces, artists such as Ariana Page Russell, Inge Jacobsen, and Alexander Batsis endeavour to answer these questions through a variety of forms. Russell in fact utilises his own hyper-sensitive skin to make visual statements about the nature of adornment. Jacobsen's work (pictured) inverts the expectation of glossy sheen we maintain of fashion magazines like Vogue by re-creating covers through the painstaking method of embroidery. All works seem to maintain a recurring relation to the nature of permanence. Is there value in an industry founded upon trends and disposability?

Fashion festivals may come and go with the seasons, but some questions remain eternal.