Bleeding garments: a magical and poetic approach to the phenomenology of intensely evocative garments
Langh, Henrica (2023) Bleeding garments: a magical and poetic approach to the phenomenology of intensely evocative garments. PhD thesis, University for the Creative Arts.
- Documents
- Details
I have a black dress that has been hanging dormant in my wardrobe for nearly a decade. I say dormant to suggest that the dress is not in active use but is nonetheless part of my wardrobe. What the dress looks like has become irrelevant. What matters is the way its presence brings back feelings of summer rain, the rough texture of pavement under bare feet, and that feeling of how love sometimes seems to stop time. The dress, however, is more than an anecdote; there is something very particular about how I feel in the presence of the dress. It stirs something deep within me and somehow seems to expand beyond its physical materiality.
There is nothing unusual about emotional attachment to clothing and the phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by academics and artists. Existing research, however, tends to focus on cognitively produced anecdotes and there is a gap in research that considers how evocative garments actually make us feel. This research is concerned with the experience of evocative garments that evoke particularly intense emotions (intensely evocative garments) and proposes that it is our encounters with the garments in the moment that makes them meaningful as a phenomenon. The aim of this research is twofold: it seeks to explore what intensely evocative garments are and can be like as an experience and what a methodology for exploring these garments might involve.
This research draws on a practice-led, interdisciplinary methodology that is underpinned by phenomenology, magical awareness, and poetry in its broader meaning. This involves exploring intensely evocative garments by applying the phenomenological attitude of wonder to practice-led experiments and to participatory workshops that invite people to ‘uncover’ poetic fragments from garments. Rather than taking the form of a traditional phenomenological text, this research also seeks to inspire phenomenological insights through practice-led outputs, such as photographs, poems, and installations. Through this in-depth exploration, this research seeks to contribute to the growing discussion on clothing and emotion and to inspire more meaningful engagement with clothes as material culture.
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University for the Creative Arts.
Theses on UCARO are made available for non-commercial research purposes only. Unless otherwise stated, content will be protected by copyright and for further use beyond research you will need to seek permission from the rightsholder (for example, author, publisher, artist).
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit View |