"She's wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
and she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers"
A COLLECTION OF FOUND VINTAGE CLOTHES AND DEADSTOCK FABRICS
gewinnen win, gain, obtain, get, recover, extract
genesen recover,recuperate, convalesce
retten save, rescue, salvage, preserve, recover, retrieve
sich erholen recover, relax, recuperate, have a rest, get better, rally
bergen hold, recover, hide, salvage, retrieve, rescue
wiedererlangen regain, retrieve, recover
regenerieren regenerate, recover, reclaim, revitalize
wiedergewinnen regain,win back, reclaim, recover
decken cover,meet, protect, offset, set, guard
gesunden recover, regain health
beitreiben recover, collect, enforce payment of
zurückbekommen get back, recover, regain
wieder finden recover, find again, regain
sicherstellen ensure, guarantee, assure, insure, recover, keep safe
wieder gutmachen repair,redress, compensate, atone for, make good, recover
sich aufrappeln get over it, recover
J
O
U
R
N
A
L
you get up
every day
to not
disappear
every day
you get up
to not
remain
lying
alors
tu te lèves
chaque jour
pour ne pas
disparaître
chaque jour
tu te lèves
pour ne pas
rester
étendu
All the clothes I found.
Some of them I changed.
Some of them I just retained.
And the ones I sewed to recover.
And the ones I repaired.
This was all about dealing.
This was all about healing.
Get back.
"I had
a flashback
of something
that never
existed"
Louise Bourgeois
“Collectionner,
c'est être
capable
de vivre
de son passé.”
Albert Camus
I was now
speaking
in circles to see
my feelings
repeat.
I made stories
to wrap them
all around me.
To not loose
myself.
But to persist.
"So I'm back
to the velvet underground
Back to the floor that I love
To a room with some lace
and paper flowers"
Fleetwood Mac
The child.
The plays.
The roles.
The figures.
The books.
All the dresses and skirts
and stories and words
and jumpers and pants
and women and men
"I've already
lost touch
with a couple
of people
I used to be"
Joan Didion
L
E
S
F
E
M
M
E
S
There had always been this woman in my head, who embodied all the women I’ve known
and all the women I’ve admired and all the women who have raised me.
Women I’ve seen and women I’ve once been.
I would now rediscover them, recall them, as I was unable to forget
and I needed to keep them in my head.
And all the women I’ve read, especially them, as they were the ones that had taught me everything I need to know.
All of them put together make the woman, that I dress, that I address.
Over all, there were the writers.
A collection of all the women I love.
A collection for all the women I love.
R
E
T
R
O
U
V
E
E
S
"Alors
C'était mon corps
C'était mon cœurs
C'était mon envie
C'était ma vie
C'était ma vie"
There were two women, until way beyond midnight
Their hair hanging down unwashed, in wisps
While in the hallway to the terrace, the towels would dry
They had now returned to speak
for there was nothing else to seek.
"That is the truth.
No other.
Doubt equals writing.
So it also equals the writer.
And for the writer,
everyone writes.
We’ve always known this."
Marguerite Duras
Then I thought, that all these things, the clothes and the words, I would combine to remain in a certain blur, a vague clarity. This was the only truth I would accept, as there is no truth but ambivalence or there's even truth in lying.
M
A
S
Œ
U
R
M
O
N
C
Œ
U
R
Sitting in this house again with George Harrison and all these old and golden gods, with a pen in my hand and some paper to write on, this was what I could call my recovery. Sitting at one end of this wooden table I’ve known all my life, facing the door which stood open day and night, thinking all things must pass and knowing, I had never been able to exclude or excuse these thoughts, that some would call sad, instead I had to face them, as I couldn't close my eyes.
Stepping out onto the terrace with Pink Floyd, blue skies from pain, I sang, can you tell, heaven from hell, and Bob Dylan and Neill Young and Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne, she’s wearing rags and feathers (...) and you know that she's half-crazy and Fleetwood Mac Although the sun is shining high above, as we had been singing all these master songs here years before, without even knowing what we had been told. Walking down to the river in the vale and singing Hey Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me, as loud as I could. My weariness amazes me. And I got back on track, as there was lying so much simple truth in those sentences and songs, that I could just move on. I discovered again, that you would always win, even when you've lost. It’s dead simple.
ANNE BOYER
MARGUERITE DURAS
JOAN DIDION
INGEBORG BACHMANN
INGER CHRISTENSEN
FRIEDERIKE MAYRÖCKER
TEREZIA MORA
ILSE AICHINGER
ELSE LASKER-SCHÜLER
SHEILA HETI
SARAH KIRSCH
HELENE CIXOUS
CLARICE LISPECTOR
I thought there might be a room for everything.
You wait in the waiting room.
You change in the changing room.
Where would be the room for doubts.
Where would be the room for fears.
A room for tears and sorrow.
Wrapped in scripture.
"In the clothes of a woman I would like to forgive
A singer must die for the lie in his voice"
Leonard Cohen
I walk over
the tableland
A bunch of grass
in my hand
And a bag
of stone
My legs still
carry me
And my heart
still beats
I call her
and she
calls me
And all
the wounds
And all
the wonders
A TALE. A CURTAIN.
"She was a collector. Her father had died and she still had those old curtains with the flower pattern and I was at her place because of some paper work etc. She gave the curtains to me, because they made her cry, as they were her father. Two years later, I would make a suit of comfort out of her father's old curtains to go on with, what I called, my thoughts on women or my recovery or just what I do, clothes and words. The suit of comfort consists of a skirt and a jumper, obviously. When I visited her, she would always give me some things she couldn't use anymore, so I usually had a lot to carry home."
They took me for her
and her for me
You can't get away
and you try to accept it
You would not get away
as lifes are connected
"Now you stand
with your thief,
you're on his parole
With your holy medallion
which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face
and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them
do you think
could destroy you?"
Bob Dylan
The clothes I made were meant to be protection as a sort of incantation. Clothes protect your body, but they also protect the picture you create of yourself, so there is not only physical protection, but also projection. You write onto your body by wearing certain clothes. It is spelling, it is speaking out. It is addressing.
You tell something by hiding your body, you still tell or at least they tell something, the clothes. It’s a way of translating yourself, get to someone else, to get someone else, as every dress is a quote. You quote something, maybe without even knowing.
As the human body basically stays the same, two legs to cover, two arms to cover, a hole for the head, every skirt will be a repetition of a skirt, to underline the body and it is only the form that varies. Same with literature, I would state.
A dress is a dress about a dress, as a story is always a story about a story about a story.
Maybe one has only one story and this story is to be told again and again, it’s only dressed differently, it’s just covered in many different ways, over and over. You would always find new pictures and words for the story underneath all stories.You cannot tell this to someone who does not read, you cannot tell this to someone who is not in love with literature or has no sense for poetry or the theatre of life. And thus, who is in love with people, all sorts of people, their stories, their fears, their losses, their loves, the way they want to be seen, the way they tell themselves. Listen with care.
You will repeat what you’ve once read, if it has touched you, if it’s come close to you. And you will only find what you’ve known already without knowing, it has already been somewhere inside of you before. Then you start putting it into your own words, you make your own story and this is a collage, a collection of your memories, of your losses and even losses are, in the end, something you’ve gained.
A collection of all the stories you’ve read, the stories you’ve been told, the pictures you’ve been growing with.
Clothes touch your body and stories touch your mind and soul, words do, poems do.
A body surrounded by a poem. You simply weave a story and put it around yourself, so you’re safe or let’s call it salvation.
I told you before I was dead serious about speaking.
„Parler de
ses peines,
c‘est déjà
se consoler.“
Albert Camus
This woman, I've once known, she was now in the house of recovery, which was the house of memory, a house of stone. She knew, it was time to collect herself or all those broken pieces and stitch herself back together. She would sit in the kitchen in her white dress of comfort, that she must have found somewhere in her deserted past. She wouldn't wear anything underneath, as she would marry herself instead. She said, this was to overwrite the last story.
The RECOVER collection is a collage of found or recovered garments, that have been reworked and combined with pieces of old collections
and new garments made out of fabrics that were given to me. It‘s about the beauty of worn clothes, second hand news. Garments, that already have been worn, contain a story, they carry a past. And as you know, it’s the good stories that hold you, they last. So this was all about keeping, collecting, repeating. About saving, protecting and repairing. About changing and rearranging again and again. In a way, it could always be the same story, only dressed in different ways. Then a collection of texts were added weaving around the word recover. This word, within all its meanings, as the center of interest. A revival of the clothes and an arousal of the poems.