The work Husks, made from recycled denim, is inspired by cocoons in nature. In this chaotic period, one has a need for intimate space, the need for contemplation in a public space. The object's form is evolving from oversized clothing and has an important relation to the human body, as a kind of protection and third skin. The installation of HUSKS is reminiscent of an ephemeral architecture, like mobile shelters. In a new normal, a modern nomad is surrounded by the familiar picture of his own private shelter, wherever he goes.
In her artistic research, Josipa Štefanec aims to redefine the boundaries of the human body through the form of soft sculpture. The sculptures are made by compiling strips of twill which then generate an organic form. This soft husk/membrane functions as a kind of shelter and safe space that overtakes the human body. The husks simultaneously exist as autonomous volumes occupying space, and expand the boundaries of the body in unexpected ways. The mutated body combines the elements of human, animal and myth, resulting in bulky objects that inhabit the gallery space. All objects have openings that invite the visitors to explore the interior and volume that can be contained by the husk. The sculptures assume several different positions such as sitting, standing or hanging, and each position reveals new dimensions of softness inscribed directly into the material (and the way it is sewn).
The husks can also be seen as kind of masks that evoke magical powers, offering the possibility to be transformed by wearing them. Aesthetically, husks as fashion objects build upon the period of the 1980s when explicitly undisciplined bodies that subvert dominant bodily norms infiltrated the fashion system. Such liminal bodies are consciously marked by otherness as a potent field of redefining bodily boundaries. In her book Experimental Fashion: Performance Art, Carnival and Grotesque Body, Francesca Granata discusses bodies in the making discovering their transformative and subversive potential. The husks are precisely such objects, but they are also garments whose softness is tested through spatial and bodily performance. – Lea Vene
Josipa Štefanec was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1978. In 2006 she graduated from the Department of Fashion and Design at Faculty of Textile Technology in Zagreb. Two years later she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of sculpture (MA) in Zagreb. She is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Textile Technology at University of Zagreb in Croatia.
Photography: Maša Pirc / BIEN 2021
