Tica, Antoaneta (ROM)
Loom of Life
Antoaneta Tica is a Lecturer in the Fashion Department at the National University of Arts, Bucharest. She creates mainly by transforming various recycled materials (plastic, paper, textiles), otherwise discarded in the field.
As an accomplished wearable art practitioner, Antoaneta is particularly attracted to how the garment can convey the messages impregnated in it by both creator and performer. In her opinion, art and life are interconnected and go together with the same common denominator - movement as progress. “Movement is the central element of human existence and the body is the engine.”
The themes examined in the works, therefore, are always related to the living world, nature or environmental concepts, or they represent allegorical characters that embody elements threatening to life on Earth.
This is the third time Antoaneta has been a finalist in Paper on Skin.
This work is inspired by the reformer Henry Ward Beecher’s quote: “We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.”
Loom of Life is closely relation with the Moirae, the goddesses of Fate and the personification of destiny. The garment has interconnected temporal loops created through weaving, a technique used for generations, therefore a symbol of both life and time.
The paper has its original colour, no paint was used except for the golden areas. The net is created from magazine paper and has approximately 600 meters of hand-spun and braided thread. The approximately 500 polka dots are created from egg cartons and have the original blue colour, only the glitter was added later.
The loops will be woven from paper threads from advertising magazines, then attached to rigid pieces of papier-mâché made from egg cartons. The pieces of papier-mâché can be fixed to the body in different ways, thus obtaining several compositions that refer to the different way in which everyone perceives the world, time and their own life, as well as our ability to decide and change our own destiny.
About 500 hours of work were needed to create the entire costume.
materials
Advertising magazines, egg cartons, glitter, gold paint for the decorations.
Additional (non-paper) - silk paper and fishing line for the thread core.
See the Work on Film
Photos Credit: Grant Wells Photo