WHAT IF THIS IS OUR LAST BALL?

2023
7,5 x 5 x 2,5m installation, digital printed panoramic, tufted acrylic rugs, costumes

Drawing inspiration from the scenes in toile de Jouy, it reinvents its code to create a contemporary interpretaiton with a social message of survival of dance and of Queerness. Inspired by the choreophobia waves that extend to dancing bans, it mirrors the history of prohibition of the textile printing techniques at its origin in France from 1686 till 1759, reflecting on the dissapearence of dance spaces after the COVID-19 Pandemic, linked to the imminent threats on trans and queer people.

Textiles, as a source of archival of collective memory, serves again as a means to preserve queer memory, under the menace of being erased, under the prevailing rise of far-right fascism.

By extending the pattern outside the fabric, the motif was pushed further towards an installation immersing into the scene. this installation consisted of a hyperaesthetical space involving sound, scent, light, rugs and the panoramic wallpaper. This installation acted as a refuge of dance mania, for the liberation of bodies, gender expression.

Within this safe space, costumed bodies engage with the different costume elements, allowing the expression of identities through these extensions of the body, allowing them to become queer creatures, embodying a new queer mythology.

WHAT IF THIS IS OUR LAST BALL?

Installation plans

Costumes