New Exhibition in Ealing to Feature Wearable Art

Display aims to redefine relationship between art and audience

Kate Dunn, one of the artists participating, explains the concept behind her work. Picture: Instagram

September 21, 2023

A new art and fashion exhibition concept is to take place in Ealing, running for two weeks from 28 September to 12 October.

Well Worn is a production of curators Alexander Harding and Alek Mechlinski, a pair of London-based creatives who say they are interested in upending and playing with the traditional relationship between art and audience.

Thirty artists have been invited to step outside their conventional modes of working, just as the audience is now invited to step into the art itself. In a departure from the typical exhibition, visitors will be encouraged to try on, wear, and define their own relationship to the works of art on display.

Audiences will have an opportunity to get up close and personal with the works of art, to feel their textures and cross the boundary that ordinarily forbids such behaviour.

Commenting on the imminent launch, co-curator Alexander Harding said, "With this project, we wanted to push the bounds of what an exhibition could be, something outside of the usual white wall format. At the core of this project is the objective of tearing down the barriers that exclude people from outside artistic circles from enjoying exhibitions. The best way to do this in our opinion is to embrace interactivity and make fun a top priority.

"Well Worn will feel like something new, but we're hoping it will be more reminiscent of a charity shop than a gallery - a space where lots of randomly different things can co exist without interrogation. We want visitors to feel free to pick up, smell, scrunch and wear the work! We're hoping this freedom, and the controlled chaos it brings about, will produce all kinds of strange but welcome co-operations."

Collaborator Alek Mechlinski agreed, saying, "Both of us being artists ourselves, we aimed to develop an idea that would genuinely inspire us as participants in the project. We firmly believe that artists produce their best when working within novel constraints and flipping roles on their heads. Judging from the feedback we have received from participants, I'm confident we have accomplished just that.

"More often than not, audiences are relegated to the role of passive spectators. Our goal here is to nurture a tangible and physical connection between the audience and the art, something which is so sorely lacking in more typical exhibitions. We also want to delve into the concept of clothing as a powerful means of expressing one's identity, and inversely how clothing is imprinted by the wearer too."

Over the course of the fortnight, the space will also play host to three events.

The first of these, on 5 October from 18:30 to 20:30, is a 2 hour pigment making workshop held by Lucy Mayes of London Pigment, where visitors will learn about and participate in the production of colours that will be made into paints and inks. A selection of these will be collated by Lucy into a garment which will be exhibited in the exhibition space.

The second of these, on 8 October 12:00 to 14:00, will be hosted by non-profit contemporary arts programme Connect Contemporary (CoCo). This will be a family oriented event aimed at involving the participation of local children and their caregivers in the exploration of artistic ideas, playfulness and expression, as they use different materials to make wearable fabric badges.

The last of these, on the closing night of 12 October, will run from 18:00 to 22:00 and involve the exhibited artists and collectives in an evening of performance and reflection. Each artist will provide their unique perspectives as counterpoints to the ideas and works present in the exhibition, encouraging the collective meaning to be agreed upon through this exchange.

The SET Arts Centre is at 105-113 St James House, Broadway, W13 9BE.