Exhibitions: Muliple locations in the US as part of the Outside In poster project curated by Maya Drozdz, in numerous locations in Antwerp and Brussels Belgium as part of my Master’s exhibition and most recently shown in New Zealand in 2007 as part of the Waikato Museum’s exhibition entitled: Existance: Life According to Art curated by Leafa Wilson
Websites: http://www.visualingual.org/outsidein/
http://artblackhead.blogspot.com/2008/02/existence-curators-essay.html
http://eyecontactartforum.blogspot.com/2008/01/deborah-cain-contributes-another-review.html
http://www.artistsalliance.org.nz/html/comment_display.php?documentCode=5053
Concept:
Originally, this project had very rudimentary aims. It was meant to test out the premise of ownership and identity, that my clothes, the clothes I felt made me feel as though I didn’t stand out as an American among the natives in 2003, would look good on only me. There is sad irony here, irony because the actual combination of clothes is a mish-mash of mass-produced mainstream European and American second-hand-store gems. Sad because the t-shirt was lost in my move to New Zealand and because current trends feature such random place names as Kokomo, Indiana or fake high schools and their mascots and their distressed, prematurely aged designs are commonplace the world over. There is an obvious disconnection. I’ve even seen my home-state spelled wrong (thank you Hallensteins). Missori instead of Missouri.
Embedded in this testing out was the inherent question of what formulates identity. Dress is both practical on some level and purely social on the other. Dress is notorious for being an identification label, yet the viewer grapples with the question this series presents. Who are these people? And makes assumptions based on their poses, backgrounds, environment, gender. There are five different nationalities represented and as a series it somehow toys with the notion of comfort by their stances, doubling back on its investigation of identity, playing yet another card of dress. It is just as much about globalisation as mobility. A second-hand pair of brown corderoys, an old red t-shirt from an Indiana high school where my cousin when to school, a blue zippered-jumper from a French (incredibly small sizes!) mail-order catalogue and a generic bag one could buy from any H&M store in any number of countries that same year.
