Rice Paper Dresses
2018
Materials: Rose Brand rice paper, cheesecloth, folding chairs, water, glass, pump. pvc tubing, extension chord.
(120,000 calories)
See statement at the bottom of the page.
The dresses are edible objects, white ceremony gowns, skin, fabric, and 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", these dresses are a body, an autotrophic object independent of internal systems- they do not hang waiting to be worn but sitting watching each other shift forms. They are interdependent yet independent, the water affects both of them, both experiencing different kinds of depletion; one is drained causing the other to lose its form.
Rice paper is a traditionally Vietnamese convectional ingredient which due to diaspora is now available in chinatown grocery stores on Spadina Ave. These dresses are 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.