This september North London’s Spring Projects gallery will play host to ‘B-Side’, the latest in a long line of exhibited works from designer Hussein Chalayan, a man who has always grounded his fashion designs in the practices of art and science. With a collection of new and previously-exhibited pieces, ‘B-Side’ is a continuation of Chalayan’s study on the dynamics of the human form, bringing together garments from past collections with film, lightboxes and larger scale sculpture and art installations. The exhibition combines three separate projects from Hussein’s extensive portfolio of works, with Micro Geography: A Cross Section, Anaesthetics and Inertia coming together as a holistic digest.

Micro Geography: A Cross Section was commissioned by Dutch gallerist Han Nefkens, and features a model submerged in a tank of water – continually spinning in a printed dress from the 2009 Inertia collection. Her matted hair floats half in the water and the lighting alters from day to night; always broadcast from various angles onto the surrounding screens. The piece is an unsettling application of voyeurism and abstraction, as the single installation becomes a complex, kaleidoscopic world.

“The camera is recording something as banal as the fabric turning in the water, but turns it into part of a bigger event. From just one situation, a whole world is created.” - Hussein Chalayan.

Above: A view of Micro Geography : A Cross Section.

The 2004 film Anaesthetics is explained as a “film sketch book” of 11 “chapters”, each based on Chalayan’s “institutions which codify behaviour in order to conceal violence”. Everyday situations become the focus of intense thought and dissection, such as the strange conditions of air travel where artificial air and entertainment keep us subdued, and the aggressive way that much refined food is prepared. In their debut outing, lightbox images from the film will be shown alongside the full-length video piece.

Inertia was the name of Chalayan’s Spring Summer 2009 collection, in which the showstoppers were body hugging dresses with dramatic protruding backs created in rubber foam and finished with a liquid sheen. A snapshot of speed and the moment of collision, they added to his inventory of dresses as narrative objects. Previous examples include breakable dresses formed in resin and others that translated into pieces of furniture.

In B-side, he has chosen to display the moulds, which offer a fascinating insight into the creation of the work. “The moulds are really beautiful in their own right,” says Chalayan. “But showing them is about process and the in-between moments. I always talk about movement and animation in my work, but this instead is the monumentalisation of the frozen moment. A freeze frame.”

Above: The finale of Inertia, Hussein Chalayan’s Spring Summer 2009 show in Paris.
Top: A still from Anaesthetics, a film by Hussein Chalayan, 2004.

SPRING PROJECTS: ‘B-SIDE’ by Hussein Chalayan
September 17th – October 23, 2010

10 Spring Place, Spring House, London NW5 3BH
t +44207 428 7159 F+442074287117
www.springprojects.co.uk