Secret Sister by Jenny Nirgends is an ongoing textile, print, and assemblage art project. It most commonly involves various textile printing processes (silk screen, alternative photographic processes, relief printing, transfer) of her collage works, but can also include painting and the combining of found textile objects, which result in the creation of limited edition one of a kind garments.
This project is Anti-fashion, it rejects the idea of consistent need to create an excess of garments, and rejects fashion standards of gender and body, while embracing the concept of slow fashion and upcycling, as each item is made meticulously by hand and never mass produced. Recycling, or upcyling of used mass produced contemporary and vintage garments its also central to both the concept and medium of this project, the majority of the materials have had previous lives and uses but they are elevated through their transformation into new pieces.
All designs are the original (in so far as collage and assemblage can be called original) work, hand printed, and assembled by Jenny Nirgends, with the exception of noted collaborations!
The contents and themes of the collage and assemblage work aim to share a passion for film history, art and theory and to share and maybe even inspire other people to make what they want and share what they know. These pieces are thematically and conceptually inspired by the retro and kitsch, cinema of transgression, experimental films, psychology, ephemera, pop art, fashion and always Trash.
What is Secret Sister?
It is an assemblage art project, the medium is textile:
Its found objects Its collage
Its kitsch
Its art history
Its photography
Its text and subtext Its film
Its sculpture
When you wear it you become part of the installation Its non-site specific
You are the performance
You are the sculpture
The museum
Its anti ephemera but it embraces the transitory origins and nature of fashion/ trends/ ideas/ art/ commercials
Its hard but soft Its new but old
Its fun but serious
Its referential, but bring to it what you want, wear it like only you would It will make you feel cool when you wear it
it can make you feel smart
it can make you feel badass
it can be provocative
it should be offensive or insightful or irreverent
wear it secretly or publicly under or over
Secret sister is for everyone, all the pieces are one of a kind,
they should either be loved and guarded for a long time or they should be taken apart and turned into something new
be loving or be irreverent, make what you want
and change what you need,
-Your Secret Sister
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