Bilateral Being, AW24

‘Bilateral Being, AW24’ is inspired by the parallel between anamorphic art, transformational garments and a brain condition that I live with, called ‘bilateral vestibular hypofunction’. When looking at the anamorphic skull depicted in ‘The Ambassadors’ by Hans Holbein, the Younger, 1533’, I realised there are parallels between myself and anamorphic art. I used one of my brain scans to create an anamorphic placement print.

The curved shapes in this form reminded myself of how the world looks when I have an episode affecting  my eyes, caused by Bilateral Vestibular Hypofunction with Oscillopsia. This affects my balance and causes me to have an unsual side effect where her eyes shake from left to right uncontrollably for 10-15 seconds; this has no name but resembles Optokinetic nystagmus for a short moment. This anamorphic print is shown in multiple places throughout my collection, primarily on a head peace that is inspired by the MRI tube and anamorphic art.

I wanted to parallel anamorphic art with my brain issue as to the plain eye I look perfectly ‘normal’ even though there are underlying issues. When looking at anamorphic art it has the reverse effect as it only looks like the ‘correct’ image when it is shown by a curved mirror or chrome pipe. To parallel this in another way I wanted the garments to be transformational,  just as anamorphic art that can be shown in two forms is. This is feature is present in a few pieces in the collection including a coat that turns in to a bag as well a transformable hat and other multifunctional garments.

Photograph and stop motion animation by Isabella Forbes