Eija Loponen-Stephenson

Rice Paper Dress is an edible object, it is a white dress, it is skin, it is fabric, it is food. In discussion with Judith Haberstam’s suggestion that “"we have become willfully blind to forms of agency that do not take the form of resistance" this dress is a body, an autotrophic object independent of internal systems- it does not hang waiting to be worn. Rice paper is a traditionally Vietnamese convectional ingredient which due to diaspora is now available in chinatown grocery stores on Spadina Ave. This dress is not commenting on diaspora.

The paper is bought in white semi-transparent disks which when dipped in warm water lose their rigid structure and become limp and wrinkled like hands soaking in the bath. The wet material is layered on a cotton cheesecloth interface and allowed to dry until it is no longer tacky and can be draped. The rice paper shrinks and wrinkles as it dries and becomes rigid like leather.