2017 – ongoing
YOU AS ME / In someone else’s shoes is a photographic series, a workshop and a public performance open to individuals and groups who wish to be portrayed in the clothes of others. It investigates and celebrates the vulnerability, the political and poetic potential of bodies that expose theirselves to displacement and evade the disciplining and prescriptiveness of roles, gender categories and status.
Visit the website of the project: www.youasme.it
THE PORTRAITS
Whose clothes would you like to wear? Who would you like to try yours on?
YOU AS ME / In someone else’s shoes stems from the observation of the ways in which
heteronormativity shapes behaviours, actions and gender hierarchies, moulds language and
spaces, defines what is appropriate and decent, and conforms rigid models of femininity and
masculinity. YOU AS ME / In someone else’s shoes is a minimal action, a collective exercise in the erosion of the more or less transparent conventions that confine people within rigid parameters and conveniences of gender, roles and status.
The project proposes an investigation on clothing as a fundamental threshold, as a social skin.
YOU AS ME intends to intercept and discuss the conflicts that define us and lead us back to the
material coordinates of our existence and their symmetrical discriminations (social class, age, gender identity, sexual preferences, dis/abilities, religion, etc.) with the purpose of creating a judgement free space, bringing light, from an intersectional point of view, on all focal points of discrimination.
Have a look to the portraits we have realized and submit your proposition!
“I asked Pino, my husband since a few months, to wear my wedding dress. A dress, that of a wife, that I never thought I would wear. But with Pino anything can happen. It doesn’t surprise me that he wears my clothes better than I do, with simplicity and strength, innate elegance and a thread of despair”.
THE WORKSHOPS AND PERFORMANCES
YOU AS ME / In someone else’s shoes is also a workshop aimed at adults and teenagers who
wish to make an experience of exploration and self-expression through the performance and the
photographic portrait. The workshops can be hosted by universities, museums, cultural centers,
festivals and social-health services. The object of the experience is a temporary exchange of clothes and their stories.
Participants are invited to bring the clothes of a person whose clothes they want to wear and personal garments to be made available to the other members of the group. After some exercises encouraging a dimension of relaxation, participants are invited to tell the story of the clothes they have chosen.
The experience induces those present, of different age, gender and origin, to practice an exercise of proximity and sharing.
The desire that moves YOU AS ME / In someone else’s shoes is the valorization of all bodies and their public representation. The workshop ends with a public performance and a video/photographic shooting dedicated to the participants in their new clothes, inviting them to focus on the sensations and the attitude the new garments lead them to.
Learn more about the international experiences of workshops and performances.
