On October 22, 2009, an installation event called SWAP, by the New Genre Arts 280 class at Whitman College, opened its doors to the local community. SWAP was ostensibly not much more than a simple clothing exchange that took place inside the Fouts art gallery on campus. As a re-emerging social activity, clothing swaps provide the opportunity to exchange instead of buy. However, SWAP took place inside a clean white walled art gallery, with the space designed specifically to mimic a retail store, thus creating a dissonance between the expectation of an ordinary retail experience and the extraordinary action of a bartering exchange. SWAP included dressing rooms, clothing racks, mirrors, couches, stylish furniture, a wall-sized SWAP logo painted on the wall, an LCD flat screen television, modern background music, and "high" and "low" end art. These elements helped transform the space into everything one might expect to encounter inside a hip commercial boutique. In the midst of all the ambience and décor were used and unwanted clothes, all of which had either been picked up for free at the end of garage sales, or purchased at the remaindered clothing bins in Portland, Or, for pennies on the dollar.
The process of realizing SWAP installation began with a small scale branding and advertising campaign. The title, SWAP, was chosen to emulate a catchy and palatable brand-name while also plainly conveying the content of the exhibition. The class created a suite of commercials promoting the "store," and distributed them --along with dates and info- by means of Facebook and other social network sites. Vibrant posters were hung in high traffic areas around campus. The collaborative effort of 8 people (connected to 8 social groups) also expanded our promotional and artistic potential. By the exhibit's opening, there were some 100 confirmed guest on the Facebook event page.
As a final prompt for interaction, the class attached a fluorescent colored tag to each item of clothing, on which were a variety of stories, histories, and/or sayings that commented directly on the item to which they were attached. As people brought in their own clothing, they were asked to add these same tags to their items before swapping them out. The tags acted as an owner's statement, which added an intangible (yet distinct) value to each of the clothing pieces. It also made perusing the clothing weird at times, and more fun. The tagging process further ensured that the exhibition took on an aura of use and ownership by the participants, and also subverted the normative experience of looking for a price tag. To take its place was a story; thus emotional value literally took the place of monetary value.
One goal of SWAP was to challenge the traditional role of the art gallery as a place where visitors are spectators and materials on display are non-removable pieces of property; another goal was to tweak the status quo experience of shopping for commercial goods. The "chic" environment combined with the unmitigated free exchange of clothing allowed visitors to become avid participants in a dynamic self-regulated bartering system that suggested new possibilities for disposal and consumption. The ambience of the gallery, the sense of order, and the personal cache of the bright hand written tags, elevated the sensed value of these old clothes, making them more desirable for participants.
SWAP aimed directly at people's desires, and revealed it convincingly by eliciting an avid participation. Intense--sometimes even aggressive--shopping practices emerged. These behaviors revealed the shared human desire for "newness." Visitors sought to make the old "re-newed." The numerous mirrors in the installation reflected the energy of this common desire back into the space. Visitors left not only with "new" clothes, but more importantly, with new thoughts: concepts of value, gain, and loss were highlighted. Experiences of novelty, connection, seeing, and being seen were explored. Ultimately, SWAP achieved a lasting and different type of engagement inside an "art space."
In rethinking the logistics of a clothing boutique, putting an almost utilitarian event into a space meant for conventional art, and adding some provocative enhancements, SWAP examined new ways to conceptualize and position both art and society at large. SWAP asked: what can "art" can be now, and what could it be tomorrow?
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Neat idea guys.
MrAlexcellent 1 month ago