I am developing wearable environments for post crisis situations. As such, the traumatized body is the site for design- a concept that deviates from the traditional disaster relief shelter. I’ll spare you all the theory (ask me and I’ll divulge), but this series of “site models” represents the psychological and physical traumatized body expressed as torso busts.
The first model- psychological model- uses newspaper clippings and chicken wire as a narrative of the stripping of identity caused by the stories/memories of crisis, which is, then, perpetuated by media creating a suffocating sense of feeling trapped.
The next two models represent systems of the physical body that generate the formal qualities we perceive of other bodies and our own. These are the skeletal, muscular, and integumentary systems.
The final model is a representation of the psychological body and the interdependence of physical systems of the body -OR- the “fusion of skin, bones and memory” (surface and structure through folding). This is the impetus for design!
*For those who are wondering…Yes, I do have male site models and even children…a family of sorts! I just haven’t photographed them yet.
Design work on these wearable environments to follow!
