IQ 2014 Journals

IQ 2014 journals articles Extracts interviews

intellect publishers of original thinking

contents

Shooting Street Style in Indonesia 2

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Socks and sustainability IQ 2014 Journals

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Addicted to Skirts 21

The International Journal of Fashion Studies project 26

a manifesto [part 1] 28

journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 32

Illustration as interactive, collaborative practice 34

dancing the sacred 41

2014/2015 journals 44

publish with us 46

journal order form 47

“ Working with Intellect has been the most satisfying and rewarding experience in my university career. I am amazed at the generosity of Intellect in regards to supporting both books and journals. The support … enhances my own creativity – especially considering future projects.

”

Amanda Williamson, Editor of Dance, Movement & Spiritualities

Welcome In 2014 we have greatly expanded our fashion portfolio with four new journals in this area of study: Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, the editorial board of which are leaders in the new wave of fashion studies which is not only influencing this discipline, but other disciplines as well; Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, the first journal in a field previously sidelined in scholarship; Clothing Cultures, which considers the everyday practices of wearing clothes as well as issues concerning their production and consumption; and International Journal of Fashion Studies, which provides a platform for non-Anglophone scholars, and ensures that previously untapped sources of knowledge reaches a global audience.

Moving from the catwalk to sidewalk, the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies has the culture of the city as its focus, while in the visual arts, two new titles, the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and the Journal of Illustration complement our existing journals in the field.

Finally, in performing arts, Dance, Movement & Spiritualities expands our coverage of dance from an exciting new perspective.

The following magazine contains articles, extracts and interviews from our 2014 journals, showcasing the most up to date research and ideas emerging in these subject areas.

We wish you pleasant reading!

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A photo essay

Shooting street style in Indonesia

by Brent Luvaas – Drexel University – Contributor to Clothing Cultures

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In March 2012, I started a street-style blog, Urban Fieldnotes (http://www.urbanfieldnotes.com), as both a research instrument for studying the practice of street-style blogging and an opensource forum for documenting my preliminary thoughts on the subject. Then, after shooting and posting style pics in my home base of Philadelphia for some ten months, in January 2013 I had the opportunity to expand the scope of the project considerably, when I was invited to a workshop in Jakarta, the bustling capital city of Indonesia on the densely populated island of Java. Indonesia is a profoundly diverse place, with no shortage of sartorial styles to call its own. The South East Asian nation is an archipelago of some 17,000 islands and is home to more than 200 distinct ethnic groups, with their own languages, customs, textile and clothing traditions. It is also home to the world’s largest Muslim population, with some 88% of its more than 230 million citizens subscribing to the faith. But this is only part of Indonesia’s style story. Indonesia has one of the world’s fastest growing fashion industries. Garment production and textiles, now the second-largest sector of Indonesia’s economy (Chongbo 2007), is helping drive an impressive economic growth rate of some 6% per year over the last decade. Accompanying this growth has been a massive expansion of Indonesia’s middle class, from around 4% of the population in 1998 to estimates as high as 40% today. Indonesia now has dozens of high-end couture designers, a thriving cottage industry of hundreds of local independent clothing labels (see Luvaas 2012), and an upwardly mobile population hungry for new designs and products. Needless to say, I was eager to see what I could find shooting street style there.

I should probably also mention that Indonesia is a place where I lived for more than two years, first as an exchange student in 1996 and later as a researcher for my book DIY Style (2012) in 2006. I knew its fashion scene pretty well before heading there to shoot street style, and I had just published an article (Luvaas 2013) on personal-style bloggers in Indonesia, a group hundreds strong and growing, with some national semi-celebrities like Diana Rikasari and Evita Nuh in their midst. But try as I might, I could not find any active street-style blogs in Indonesia. There had been

one, Jakarta Street Looks, a few years back, but it had already quietly fizzled out. The only other remaining one I could find, Jakarta Street Journal, was devoted largely to industry events and contained only a few, sparsely updated posts on style outside of those events. I wanted to know why. Why does one of the world’s fastest growing fashion industries, with its own expansive community of personal-style bloggers produce so few street-style bloggers? What is it about Indonesia that makes it less prone to that particular – and enormously popular – type of representation?

This photo essay, shot ‘on the streets’ of Jakarta, as well as Bandung – a city some three hours south-east by train from Jakarta and one of Indonesia’s biggest manufacturers of outsourced clothing – goes some way to answer that question.

I do not, however, offer a clear-cut hypothesis or argument here. Street-style photography does not lend itself to such pithy summations. Instead, I present only some necessary context for understanding these pictures, along with brief reflections about what I encountered while shooting them. My intention is for the images to present their own form of argument, articulating more effectively than I can through words alone the place of style in Indonesia today.

Placing the ‘street’ in ‘street style’ Does fashion trickle down from the elite (Veblen 1994; Bourdieu 1984) or bubble up from ‘the streets’ (Polhemus 1994; Aspelund 2009)? And do the styles on the sidewalk really inspire the fashions on the catwalk, as decades of literature in fashion studies have now claimed? If so, then Indonesia’s fashion industry is in bad shape.

Its streets are a congested mess of motorbikes and rickshaws. Its sidewalks are packed with food vendors and pirated CDs. Fashion, as we understand it in the western world – that practice of stylized experimentation characteristic of the upwardly mobile and the creatively inclined (Polhemus 1978), simply does not happen on the streets of Indonesia. There is no room for it. The very notion that fashion starts on ‘the streets’, a premise, incidentally on which street-style blogs depend, presumes a romanticized model of street life passed down in the European tradition from Baudelaire, rr an intoxicating blend of dandies and scoundrels that defy the

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Figure 1: Lea on Jalan Kemang Raya in South Jakarta.

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Figure 2: The permanently jammed streets of Jakarta.

Figure 3: The vendor-packed streets of Bandung.

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Figure 4: Zikra, taking refuge in the upscale Plaza Senayan shopping centre in Central Jakarta. Notice the Hermès scarf, similar to that worn by Rinanta in Figure 11, but worn quite differently here.

Figure 5: Ragil, an employee of Lee Cooper, dressed head to toe in their products outside their retail outlet at the Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta. Is this street style or mall style? In a country seeking to move ‘the streets’ indoors is there a difference? And does it matter if he is wearing this outfit ‘for himself ’ or ‘for his job?’

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IQ 2014 Journals Figure 8: Siro in a trim, sophisticated take on the hijaber look at Paris van Java Mall in Bandung. I asked her what brands she was wearing and she told me she neither knew nor cared. Good for her.

bourgeois conventions of the settled and the genteel.

This is not what Indonesian streets look or feel like. The streets in Indonesia are not pedestrian zones where smartly dressed flâneurs go to promenade (Benjamin 2002). Parades of edgy, avant garde style do not happen there – indeed, it is an open question as to whether they happen anywhere at all.

As Sophie Woodward (2009) has argued, street style is largely a ‘myth’, fabricated and promoted by fashion magazines, and yet it is a western myth, modelled on a very specific type of European pedestrian zone. To the extent that parades of style happen in Indonesia, they happen in malls. And that is where I had to go to shoot street style there. Malls, with their canned lighting and brand-name chain stores, malls that recreate the mythology of ‘the streets’ indoors.

Curating cool

Hijaber style What Indonesian street style lacked in ‘cool’, at least as I had understood it back home, it made up for in colour and conviction.

Colour is everywhere on the streets – and in the malls – of urban Indonesia: colour, that is, and prints, some employing local patterns, some sampling from an international repertoire of tie dye, paisley and plaid. Urban Indonesian women, it would seem, have turned to colour and print in a big way, taking risks with both of a sort I have seldom seen in the United States – batik with hounds tooth, ikat with stripes. Colours ranged from bright pink

Importing subculture Where men’s fashion has been most conspicuously articulated in Indonesia is in a decidedly more secular realm, that of ‘alternative’ urban styles labelled locally as ‘indie’ or ‘underground’. As Wallach r r

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The street-style bloggers I have interviewed for my larger project often imagine themselves as documenting trends on city streets the way curators of some turn-of-the-century museum of mankind salvaged the traditions of disappearing tribes. But there is a significant difference: archivists attempt to get representative samples. Street-style photographers document exceptions. They are interested in ‘style’, that ‘superadded, rare, desired quality’ (Johnson-Woods and Karaminas 2013: 13), that applies to probably no more than one in a hundred people. And how do street-style photographers recognize style? The answer I have invariably received from every street-style photographer I have interviewed is this: they just do. Photographers sense a quality in a person – a particular stance, a mode of presentation, a way of moving through the world – that is distinctly bold and stylized, and they react to it, the more instantaneously the better. When you think about it too much, the theory goes, you tend to get it wrong.

So what problems, then, does shooting in a foreign context pose to a street-style photographer? How does one recognize style in a place where the bodily hexis (Bourdieu 1980) of cultural elaboration is so utterly different? Does ‘cool’ cross borders?

Does it even make sense to talk about ‘cool’ in a place so far from urban America, that racially charged milieu in which the stylized indifference of ‘cool’ became a fixture of the modern personality (Leland 2004). I do not know. I can tell you, however, that in Bandung and Jakarta, my style radar – cultivated over months of shooting in Philadelphia – was malfunctioning. I hesitated. I questioned myself. I felt ill-equipped to pick out the stylish among the many.

and orange to rich blues and golds. And the women taking the biggest risks bar none were the ‘hijabers’, those modest Muslim women making their declarations of faith into expressions of personal style.

Hijabers have become much more visible in Indonesia in recent years. During the authoritarian Suharto regime, which ruled Indonesia from 1965 to 1998, Islam was continually minimized in political life, some might say ‘suppressed’ (Hefner 2000; Rudnyckyj 2009). Suharto’s New Order government considered hardline (santri) Islam a threat to national sovereignty and sought to promote the ‘tolerant’, mystically oriented traditionalist (abangan) brand of Javanese Islam (see Geertz 1960; Beatty 1999) in its stead. But when student revolt brought down the regime in 1998, a new era of openness and freedom of expression, commonly known as reformasi, took hold, and in keeping with an increasingly familiar brand of irony, it also brought more fundamentalist strands of Islam into the open. Far more women began to cover their heads, a practice often frowned upon by the older generation of the Javanese majority (see Brenner 1996), and seen as almost a rebellious act throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s, a declaration of faith against common social expectations.

During my first time in Indonesia, back in 1996, I would estimate that about one in twenty women I came across in Java covered their heads. In 2013, it must have been closer to one in three.

But this does not mean women were dressed more conservatively or ‘traditionally’. On the contrary, as anthropologist Carla Jones (2010) has documented, the rise of piety has produced numerous innovations in Islamic fashion. Designers like Dian Pelangi and Irna Mutiara design exclusively for observing Muslim women, producing brightly coloured, intricately draped garments that have garnered international attention. Workshops are held in upscale Jakarta suburbs, providing make-up and self-presentation tips to the Muslim and upwardly mobile (Jones 2010). And every bookstore I stepped into this past January had a section devoted to ‘hijab style’, full of books of tips and tricks for tying and draping, often stacked high on the bestseller tables. There is even a network of personal-style bloggers in Indonesia, known as the Hijabers Community, devoted exclusively to hijab style. And designer Dian Pelangi, a member of that community, recently put out her own book of street-style photographs, titled, appropriately Hijab Street Style.

I found the visibility of hijabers in public space rather inspiring.

These women are bold and striking. But it brought forth a number of questions for me. Has, for instance, the increasing presence of Islam in public life enabled expressions of fashion for women once frowned upon as immodest or imprudent? Has the professed modesty of the hijab made forms of expression acceptable that once were taboo? And do women experience this development, this stylization of Islam, as a new liberation or constraint? Why, after all, has Islam’s fashion explosion been so specific to women?

Why has there not been a comparable phenomenon for men?

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IQ 2014 Journals Figure 6: Firmansyah, in local ‘indie’ clothing label Began, standing before their ‘distro’ (retail distribution outlet) on Jl Trunojoyo in Bandung. In Philadelphia I would attribute ‘hipster’ status to anyone wearing this outfit.

But is Firmansyah a ‘hipster’? It somehow seems like the wrong word for him. As does ‘cool’. He is stylish, no doubt, and on trend. But is he cool?

Or something else besides?

Figure 7: Cindy at Aksara Books on Jl Kemang Raya in Jakarta was without question the ‘coolest’ person I shot on this expedition. She was hip, ‘with it’, not outwardly impressed by the idea of being on my blog. She also, however, had spent six years in Australia, which begs the question as to whether ‘cool’ as such has relevance here. Or is cool a kind of imposition, a foreign sensibility with little local application?

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Figure 9: Dicka in tie-dye, stretch pants and a headscarf at the Pondok Indah Mall in upscale South Jakarta. She seemed genuinely surprised that I would want to photograph her, describing her own style as ‘whatever is in the closet’ (apa ada di lemari), but she let me anyway.

Figure 10: Indah flaunting patterns and colours at Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta.

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IQ 2014 Journals Figure 11: Rinanta and Rininta at the Paris Van Java mall in Bandung, Indonesia. Rinanta’s headscarf is Hermès. The rest of her outfit is ‘unbranded’. Rininta’s headscarf is unbranded. The rest of her outfit is Mango.

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Figures 12a and 12b: Colours, patterns and textures outside Bandung Indah Plaza.

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IQ 2014 Journals Figure 13: Ali, modelling the look that dominates the Indonesian indie scene and underground on Jl Trunojoyo in Bandung. He is wearing a cap by local indie brand Oink!, a Kizaru T-shirt and a pair of homemade Chinos.

Figure 14: Rudi of Hope Fast Hope, a tattoo and apparel company on display at ‘Independent Clothing’, a showcase of local brands in front of the Bandung Indah Plaza. Rudi is part of a generation of Bandung punks, now in their early thirties, who draw stylistic inspiration from the Chicano hardcore bands of East Los Angeles.

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Figure 16: An ‘underground’ scenester in the black-clad uniform of subcultural cool, passing Bandung Indah Plaza.

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Figure 15: A more modish indie couple outside an indie fashion event in Bandung.

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IQ 2014 Journals Figure 17: Novee and Lucky at the Paris Van Java Mall in Bandung, bucking the hijaber trend while sticking to its bright colours and bold simplicity.

Figure 18: Ghea, Ali and Gendis, a group of friends with a diverse fashion sensibility, complicating any efforts to generalize the state of women’s fashion in Indonesia today.

“The South East Asian nation is an archipelago of some 17,000 islands and is home to more than 200 distinct ethnic groups, with their own languages, customs, textile and clothing traditions.”

Conclusion: The trouble with representing place through streetstyle photos So what can I say about style in Indonesia after shooting there for three weeks this past January? What can I claim to have learned about place, space and meaning from documenting a people through their stylized exceptions? Well, perhaps there is not all that much I can say that has not already been said thousands of times already: that Indonesia is vast and varied; that its quiltwork of cultures is impossible to accurately characterize without a great deal of hedging; that it is highly syncretic and appropriative, drawing from multiple other places and cultures, whether by inspiration or imposition. There is no ‘Indonesian’ style, just

as there has never been an Indonesian culture or character.

There is no singularity of vision. And yet there are tendencies and moods that I hope emerge from these photos, patterns just on the verge of crystallization. Hijabers, for instance, with their colourful play on high fashion excess and modest piety, have risen to public prominence in the last decade. But so have punks, indie kids and metalheads. There has long been something fundamentally democratic at work in Indonesian fashion, a sheer irrepressible diversity of influences, none ever able to fully dominate another. But the democratization of Indonesian style tells us little about Indonesia’s place in the larger fashion world, a place still tenuous and marginal at best. Indonesia has been largely left out of representation in the street-style blogosphere, just as it has in the fashion world more generally. Street style, as currently conceptualized, remains foreign to Indonesia for reasons articulated here, and Indonesia, consequently, remains off the street-style map. I hope these pictures succeed in evoking something of the dynamism and variety of style in Indonesia today. I hope they succeed in making visible something of what still remains without representation. t

Read on Brent Luvaas – Drexel University – contributor to Clothing Cultures – ISSN: 20500742. This journal is part of the Cultural Studies Collection & Fashion Collection.

References Aspelund, Karl (2009), Fashioning Society: A Hundred Years of Haute Couture by Six Designers, New York: Fairchild Publications.

Baulch, Emma (2007), Making Scenes: Reggae, Punk, and Death Metal in 1990s Bali, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

Beatty, Andrew (1999), Varieties of Javanese Religion: An Anthropological Account, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Benjamin, Walter (2002), The Arcades Project, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Bourdieu, Pierrre (1980), The Logic of Practice, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

(1984), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste,

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(2008b), Sen and Hill (2000) and Baulch (2007), among others, have documented, these are imported subcultural styles that came to Indonesia first through a variety of unofficial circuits: from cassette tapes dubbed off of passing European tourists, from mail order catalogues sent for from abroad, through to well-worn magazines passed hand to hand among friends. Punk and metal were already present in Indonesia by the early 1980s, but they became further elaborated on in the 1990s as both an alternative to the commercial schlock pumped out by a state-controlled media industry (Baulch 2007; Luvaas 2013), and as a cry of protest against the authoritarian Suharto regime (Wallach 2008a; Lee 2011). Underground scenesters were deeply involved with the protests that eventually brought down the regime in 1998, and once it had fallen, such styles only proliferated more rapidly. In a newly open media environment, with an Internet infrastructure firmly in place by the end of the 1990s, nearly every variety of imported subcultural expression was able to move freely and easily throughout the urban centres of the archipelago. Today, Indonesia is a hotbed of punk, post-punk, new wave, no wave, noise and every variety of metal imaginable. There is hardly a music or fashion scene anywhere not represented somewhere in the archipelago. And yet, underground looks remain a maledominated mode of expression, with somewhat conservative, even ascetic tendencies (Wallach 2008b). In Indonesian subculture, the simple black T-shirt reigns supreme.

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Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Brenner, Suzanne (1996), ‘Reconstructing Self and Society: Javanese Muslim Women and “The Veil”’, American Ethnologist, 23: 4, pp. 673–97.

Chongbo, Wu (2007), ‘Studies on the Indonesian Textile and Garment Industry’, Labour and Management in Development Journal, 7: 5, pp. 1–14.

Geertz, Clifford (1960), The Religion of Java, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Gilbert, David (2006), ‘From Paris to Shanghai: The Changing Geography of Fashion’s World Cities’, in C. Breward and D. Gilbert (eds), Fashion’s World Cities, Oxford: Berg, pp. 3–32.

Hefner, Robert W. (2000), Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Johnson-Woods, Toni and Karaminas, Vicki (2013), Shanghai Street Style, Bristol and Chicago: Intellect.

Jones, Carla (2010), ‘Materializing Piety: Gendered Anxieties about Faithful Consumption in Contemporary Urban Indonesia’, American Ethnologist, 37: 4, pp. 617–37.

Lee, Doreen (2011), ‘Styling the Revolution’, Journal of Urban History, 37: 6, pp. 933–51.

Leland, John (2004), Hip: The History, New York: Harper Perennial.

Luvaas, Brent (2012), DIY Style: Fashion, Music, and Global Digital Cultures, London and New York: Berg.

(2013), ‘Indonesian Fashion Blogs: On the Promotional Subject of Personal Style’, Fashion Theory, 17: 1, pp. 55–76.

Miller, Daniel and Woodward, Sophie (2012), Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary, London and New York: Routledge.

Polhemus, Ted (1978), Fashion and Anti-Fashion, London: Thames and Hudson.

(1994), Streetstyle: From Sidewalk to Catwalk, London: Thames and Hudson.

Rudnyckyj, Daromir (2009), ‘Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia’, Cultural Anthropology, 24: 1, pp. 104–41.

Sen, Krishna, and Hill, David T. (2000), Media, Culture and Politics in Indonesia, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Veblen, Thorstein (1994), The Theory of the Leisure Class, London: Dover Publications.

Wallach, Jeremy (2008a), ‘Living the Punk Lifestyle in Jakarta’, Ethnomusicology, 52:1, pp. 98–116.

Wallach, Jeremy (2008b), Modern Noise, Fluid Genres: Popular Music in Indonesia, 1997–2001, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Woodward, Sophie (2009), ‘The Myth of Street Style’, Fashion Theory, 13: 1, pp. 83–102.

Socks and sustainability Intellect interviews Andrew Reilly – Editor of Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion

I: Do you have any advice for junior scholars working in the field who are looking to get their first position or get their first article or book published?

AR: Don’t give up. It’s hard to establish yourself at first. You need to find a niche – mine was menswear. I chose the area because few other people were studying it. But you also have to love the subject – you’ll be living with it day, night, on weekends for the next 30 to 40 years.

Find a mentor who knows the field and can guide you. If you cannot find a mentor, become your own mentor and ask yourself, “What would I tell myself if I asked myself this question?”

Intuitively, you know the answer.

Publish, publish, publish. You will get rejected – that’s the nature of the business. Some reviews of your papers can be harsh (but helpful) and some can be downright cruel. This doesn’t mean your work isn’t valid – it just means someone did understand it. See if what they write about your work is legitimate – often times we can get sidetracked on the way someone said something that what they were trying to convey. If what someone said was applicable, then use it to make your manuscript better; if what they said wasn’t true, then chuck it and vow never to be a nasty reviewer.

I: Do you believe Fashion Studies will ever gain the respect of the Academy and be treated as an equal to science, medicine and technology, or even gain the respect that other more established areas within the humanities have attained?

AR: It is respected in some arenas, and as a whole, fashion is starting to become a respected discipline, especially as it becomes

inter- and cross-disciplinary and people are studying it from different perspectives (e.g., anthropology, sociology, psychology, marketing, etc.) It hasn’t been respected for decades because fashion has been thought of as the domain of women, and (incorrectly) viewed as frivolous and vain. The sciences were often the areas dominated by men. But if you look at history, fashion and stylish dress were part of the male repertoire for centuries.

Louis XIV was so infatuated with clothing not only did he establish trends in France, he also brought the industry to Paris.

I think menswear has been neglected in the study of fashion because people erroneously believed men weren’t interested in fashion. That is what prompted me to do my first book, Men’s Fashion Reader – I wanted to challenge people’s assumptions and give legitimacy to this area of study.

I: You are an integral member of the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA). Can you tell us a bit about the association and its mission?

AR: The International Textile and Apparel Association is an organization of scholars, instructors, and practitioners dedicated to promoting fashion studies, supporting its members, and exchanging ideas on the meanings and possibilities of fashion and dress. They have meetings annually and publish the quarterly journal Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. In November 2012 I hosted the organization in Waikiki. It was a conference three years in the making, a lot of work, but definitely worth it.

I: Could you tell us a little bit about your forthcoming projects and what we can expect from them?

AR: I am currently editing Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion. The first issue will be out in Fall 2013. My goal is to provide a space for scholars and people interested in men’s fashion and dress to have a place where they can publish and find other informative, peer-reviewed manuscripts. I want the broad range of disciplines to be represented – art and anthropology to business and marketing. We produce three issues a year and plan on special focus issues.

My other project is with two of my colleagues in Hawai`i. We are writing Honolulu Street Style, a book that will examine – visually r r

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I: What first attracted you to fashion and retail?

AR: I’ve been interested in clothing as long as I can remember.

I recall making clothes out of scraps of fabric and paper towels for my mother and grandmother and my teddy bears as a child.

I was always drawing clothing; mostly, women’s, which is ironic because I now devote myself to studying menswear. I thought menswear was boring, until I took a psychology of clothing course in college. I realized two things: menswear was interesting and it was discussed little relative to women’s clothing.

and analytically – the types and meaning of local fashion. Not the typical Aloha Shirt, though that will be mentioned, but the other styles that Hawai`i does well – like beachwear and ethnicallyinspired dress. Hawai`i has been the birthplace of board shorts, flip flops (“rubber slippers”), Casual Friday, and the launching point for Asian-style tattoos to the West. It is more than brightly colored shirts.

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I: What do you perceive as the hot topics in fashion and popular culture, and what do you think will be important over the coming years?

AR: Right now sustainability is the big issue and I hope (and think) it will continue to be a big issue. Our earth is so damaged that we need to really examine how we can change our ways of behaving. Disposable fashion is one of them. As theorists, professionals, and consumers find ways to change out wasteful consumption patterns and find balance.

The other big issue is health and fashion. Fashion and our concerns for our appearance affect our mental and physical health. Just look at the modeling industry and how the desire to be thin and desired affects not only professional models but young (and middle age and older) people to either feel poorly about themselves or try potentially-harmful, quick-fix solutions.

Do you have any favorite 'looks' or preferred designers?

AR: I like things that are a surprise. Something typical but with a twist. I like to wear shirts by a local firm, Tori Richard. They design beautiful silk tops with embroidered backs. From the front they look conservative, but once you turn around, pow! They are works of art. They sometimes have hidden details in the pockets – and I like that because it’s a surprise. I also like colorful, creative socks for that matter. You can dress conservatively but a fun sock can be your bit of whimsy. And then, well, let’s just say they know my name at Prada. t

Read on Andrew Reilly – University of Hawaii, Manoa – Editor Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion – ISSN: 2050070X. This journal is part of the Cultural Studies Collection & Fashion Collection.

An Interview with Howie Nicholsby

Addicted to Skirts

by David Loranger – Fashion Institute of Technology – Contributor to Fashion, Style & Popular Culture

DL: What is it about your designs that modernizes Highland Dress?

HN: The key thing is that my kilts mostly are not tartan. Straight away, the modern radical thing about that is… By the way, there was a programme on BBC the other night called The Dubious History of Scottish Tartan. It’s on the BBC iPlayer, and you should watch it. It’s very interesting. It shows the history of Tartan and its influence, which I’ve always said is English and European, as well as French aristocracy. Queen Victoria’s influence was so massive on where Highland Dress sat. To be honest David, and not to blow my own trumpet, I was the first person to ever properly add a modern range. Your black kilts and all have existed, and camouflage. You know, I saw a guy in Georgia in the middle of the boondocks at age 10 with a camouflage wrapped around him like a kilt. Anyone who wants something modern can come into this brand and wear it, and it will still be a proper kilt, but not tartan. (Figures 3 & 4) DL: In a nutshell could you give us an idea of the kilts beginnings?

HN: I take it back the furthest anyone can, which is ancient hieroglyphics. Now another book to be aware of is Men in Skirts

by Andrew Bolton of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which was sponsored by Jean Paul Gaultier. It shows all the cultures throughout mankind that wore un-bifurcated clothing, which means crotchless. So all men of ancient cultures wore skirts.

The major reason was that there was no real tailoring, so it was gathering fabric like togas. Look at the ancient cultures like the Vikings and the Romans and the Germanic races… how people used to battle – it was all about raping and pillaging. It’s a horrible thing to think about today, but when you’re wearing a skirt it’s much easier to lift it, get into position and still have your hand near your sword free. Also, you can get running pretty damn quickly! So it’s a nastier side of the kilt’s history. What we wore in Braveheart’s time, which is the Breacan an Fhéilidh, the wrap up kilt, probably came from Vikings. You think of the old Viking movies that you used to watch with Kirk Douglas. [The garments] were wrapped around their body and across their chest, which kind of looked like they were wearing trousers. However, it was just wraps of material going over the knee to keep the legs warm.

The Highlanders did the same. It looked like they were wearing trousers, but they had no underwear on. If they did, it was like a r r

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DL: Howie, tell us how you got your start?

HN: At 5 years old I was taken to Atlanta, Georgia, to a Scottish festival, and I realized at that young age, the business that my mom and dad were in allowed for good travel, meeting amazing people and a fun way of working. It was held outdoors underneath tents, and seeing all those people dressed up in Scottish regalia – women dressed as Mary Queen of Scots – they were very historically dressed. I remember at each tent seeing guys with camouflage wrapped around them, kind of making the ancient kilt called the Breacan an Fhéilidh (pronounced BREkan an Feelay). From an early age I was around Highland dress in many different forms – from guys wearing kilts with flip-flops and American T-shirts, to being the full jacket, with shiny buttons and the silk jabots – you know very, very regal, like you saw in Four Weddings and a Funeral. So I grew up seeing the kilt in diverse forms and it wasn’t till I was 18 [that I discovered what I wanted to do]. (Figure 1) I went through quite a personal crisis; I was quite depressed.

I went through a cycle when I was in college studying media and communications and I just got involved in the club scene, and you know – acid. It really did affect my head quite badly – to the point where my mom and dad had to get me into a private clinic. I was in there for a week and ten days and I was tender when I got out, but my mind was back. So I say that my mom and dad saved my life. They had a fabulous business, and at 18 I decided that I didn’t want to go into media.

I had a year out to Israel planned, but because I had just been in a drug clinic, the organization that I was travelling with wasn’t happy with me going, so I spent a year in my mom and dad’s business.

I’d already done the retail side of things – how to sell a kilt from age 14 or 15, and summer holi days I’d always fetched kilts for people, but at this point I wanted to spend time in a proper workshop. My dad’s a master tailor – trained in London Savile Row – and I always felt that this was the key to his success. He learned kilt making when he opened his own business in 1971, and my grandfather also had a kilt shop in Edinburgh. (Figure 2)

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Figure 2: Howie taking tracking threads out of a child’s kilt, 2013.

Photograph courtesy: Howie and Charlotte Nicholsby.

Figure 1: Lord Mungo Murray, John Michael Wright, 1683, oil on canvas, Google Art Project.

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Figure 3: New Designs from the 21st Century Kilts Fall 2013 Collection, 2013. Photograph courtesy: Howie and Charlotte Nicholsby.

Figure 4: New Designs from the 21st Century Kilts Fall 2013 Collection, 2013. Photograph courtesy: Howie and Charlotte Nicholsby.

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IQ 2014 Journals Figure 5: Howie at the 21st Century Kilts Shop on Thistle Street, 2012.

Photographed: Frasier Moodie; courtesy:Howie and Charlotte Nicholsby.

Figure 6: Howie Nicholsby and Lenny Kravitz, 2009. Photograph courtesy: Howie and Charlotte Nicholsby.

long tunic or shirt that came under the gathering, and it would make a knot at the crotch. (Figure 5) DL: Do you see a difference in the perception of highland dress between the older Scots and the younger Scots? Do they expect two different things, or is it a very traditional consistency?

HN: It’s a very traditional consistency, even of young men. They come up from graduation still wanting Prince Charlies and highwaisted suits, properly military–looking stuff. I often joke about Darwinism and how mankind came from monkeys, but we’re still monkeys. The human race has evolved and they haven’t evolved.

I can see the kilt industry being like that.

DL: What’s your perception of the sexual stereotypes of the kilt in non-Scottish cultures, and do you think that those stereotypes could change abroad?

HN: Well it depends on what stereotypes you’re talking about, because I’ve faced many different kinds, to the point of walking about… where was I? Cancun, Mexico, can’t remember the resort, but we were walking and I dressed four English guys in kilts, and myself. So there’s five of us walking, and these guys had never worn kilts. [They were] big, burly English guys. I had a load of kilts on me on holiday, and one night I just said ‘Yes, I’ll stick you all in kilts’. There was a lot of bad homophobia towards us by groups of guys. Now, these English guys want to go for it – fight.

People would say things like ‘Why are you wearing a skirt?’ and you say things like ‘My wife loves it!’ So you throw that right back at them. [At other times] I was just walking down the street, and

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Read on David Loranger – Fashion Institute of Technology – Contributor to Fashion, Style & Popular Culture – ISSN: 20500726. This journal is part of the Cultural Studies Collection & Fashion Collection.

Contributor details David Loranger is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, with an M.P.S. in Global Fashion Management, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Graduate School at the Fashion Institute of Technology and at LIM College in New York City, where he teaches Retailing, Supply Chain Management, Fashion Merchandising and Marketing. He is currently a Floor Manager at Bergdorf Goodman Men’s Store (division of Neiman Marcus Group) in New York City, and has a seventeen-year surface design and luxury retailing background. In design, he has worked for Textile Design Group, and also founded his own studio called The Fashion Collective. In retail, he has been a selling manager for Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys New York.

Cultural Studies

DL: What is the future then?

HN: I am part of the evolution, and someone will take it from me off on another level… that is 22nd Century kilts. Are they gravity proof? Could you wear the kilt in space? [laughs] Not really. So I wonder. I never want to be classed in the categories of fashion, I want to be classed in the categories of an evolution of a very special garment, [which is a] movement making the kilt a bigger piece of clothing for men around the world. Take denim jeans as an example. They originated in France… denim, and the whole cut of the jean. I’m not honestly sure, David, how did denim jeans evolve, how did they became so popular. It kind of boggles me that 501 jeans are so pure, but it’s such a massive thing and still going… that eight out of ten people are mostly wearing jeans.

They’re so versatile.

That’s how I would like to see the kilt. Not everyone wears denim jeans, not everyone wears them the same way. Not everyone wears a pair of jeans every day. I would say all men around the western world particularly could, for any reason, just to have something different, honestly have a kilt in their wardrobe that comes out once or twice a week or once or twice a month.

You know, because you don’t have to be French or American to wear jeans, you don’t have to be Thai to wear a sarong on the beach, so you don’t have to be Scottish to wear a kilt. You know, we are a stepping stone in the evolution of men’s clothing. The kilt in 100 years time could generally be something you see like a pair of jeans, on every two or three men. You know two out of every ten men could be wearing a kilt in tweed or a denim kilt as much as guys wearing denim or tweed trousers.

people crossing the road stare because you’re in a kilt, and people think you might be slightly mental or violent. But you know, you smile at people and you make eye contact, and it’s a great way to break the ice and be friendly.

There are so many different stereotypes around the world, like when I was in Egypt at the airport. I thought that they were calling me a transvestite. But it turned out that in Egyptian they were calling me ‘Braveheart!’ In an Egyptian context, I think it was a character in Egyptian history and they made a ‘Braveheart’type film about, and he was a freedom fighter. When I walked up in a denim kilt all the Egyptian folk in the airport and bus drivers and all sorts of folks were calling me by his name. So wherever I go in the world, it creates reactions that turn into very friendly situations. This is why I could never go back to trousers – I would find life too boring. I’m going to use a quote – ‘People who wear unusual clothing lead a more interesting life’. And from 21 when I made the life choice to start wearing a kilt everyday, I’ve had such an interesting life. Business aside, the people I’ve met from just being on beaches on holiday in airports – because I’ve been wearing a kilt – has been incredible. (Figure 6). t

The International Journal of Fashion Studies project

by Emanuela Mora, Agnés Rocamora and Paolo Volonté – Editors of International Journal of Fashion Studies

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English being a lingua franca of the international academic world, much of the most influential literature in fashion studies has been produced in that language. Indeed, access to a global readership is premised on the submission to academic journals of texts written in English. However, over the years a meaningful corpus of fashion studies has developed in other regions that have just as much of a tradition as Anglophone countries in costume, clothing, and fashion practice as well as in the study of social and cultural phenomena. But this corpus is not written in English and, because of language obstacles, has not reached the international audience it might have. Scholars who are not English speakers and have neither the time nor the resources to produce texts in that language may be excluded from current debates in English on fashion, clothing and appearance. The richness of their material can go unacknowledged within the Anglophone field, which can only deprive the field of fashion studies of significant findings and insights. This is at odds with both the global nature of the fashion systems and the call, in much contemporary academia, for the fostering of international networks and research.

The editorial team of the International Journal of Fashion Studies strongly believes that the reception of contributions from countries with less visibility in English language academic publications has been long overdue. It has therefore set as its main aim the dissemination of the work of non-Anglophone scholars who write in their first language by publishing their writings in English translation, thereby encouraging the global circulation of research undertaken in other languages and cultures.

On the one hand, we acknowledge that English is the language that can reach most fashion studies readers without further translation being necessary. For none of the editors, is English a first language. Notwithstanding considerations of the defence of linguistic and cultural diversity, we embrace its use for communication amongst scholars. On the other hand, we believe that the existence of language barriers prevents scientific output from non-Anglophone countries from circulating with equal facility amongst fashion scholars. This results in a linguistic dominance that impoverishes the stock of knowledge available to Anglophone scholars. It is to address this issue that the

International Journal of Fashion Studies was created.

In operational terms, besides finding out about, and looking out for, research from non-Anglophone scholars, not least through the support of our Editorial and Advisory boards, our principal tool consists in the peer reviewing of articles written in the author’s chosen language, whether English or not. This process of peer-reviewing will help lower the language barriers that prevent access to the large international Anglophone audience. We already cover a wider variety of languages1, and will further develop our reach thanks to the help of the fashion studies community. It is only once an article has been accepted for publication that it will be translated into standard British English.

The cost will be left to the author but with the assurance that the work will be published. However, the journal aims to acquire some funding to support the authors in the translation of their papers.

The International Journal of Fashion Studies by no means intends to ‘ghettoize’ non-Anglophone fashion studies. This would not be to the benefit of either the authors or the academic community as a whole. The journal is open to contributions written in all languages by authors from every cultural and linguistic context, including the English-speaking countries. The coming together of this variety of contributions from different backgrounds will give the journal its richness. We are hoping to create a platform for the sharing of ideas, a platform that by mitigating the linguistic divide can become a bridging field between cultures.

This divide is not only unfair to individual scholars who must overcome a language barrier to find an international audience as wide as the Anglophone, it also impoverishes fashion studies by limiting the number and cultural diversity of authors who can establish themselves in the field. The supremacy of English in the publication of scholarly work results in a sort of AngloAmerican ethnocentrism. In contrast, the International Journal of Fashion Studies aims to build a space in which the cultural variety of practices and interests, of research subjects, and of traditions of producing knowledge is legitimized to enrich the field of fashion studies. t

“Over the years a meaningful corpus of fashion studies has developed in other regions that countries in costume, clothing, and fashion practice as well as in the study of social and cultural phenomena.”

Read on Emanuela Mora – Università Cattolica di Milano Agnés Rocamora – London College of Fashion Paolo Volonté – Politecnico di Milano Editors of International Journal of Fashion Studies – ISSN: 20517106 This journal is part of the Cultural Studies Collection & Fashion Collection.

Endnotes 1 Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croat, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.

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have just as much of a tradition as Anglophone

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a manifesto [part 1]

by Benjamin Fraser – The College of Charleston – Editor of Journal of Urban Cultural Studies

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To consider ‘the city’ is it not already to extend philosophy, to reintroduce philosophy into the city or the city into philosophy?

– Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City, 92

IQ 2014 Journals

[…]

If there is any hope of understanding contemporary urban life, we must admit that philosophy is more than a mere part of the urban puzzle. Indeed, writes Lefebvre, in his The Right to the City, ‘In order to take up a radically critical analysis and to deepen the urban problematic, philosophy will be the starting point’ (1996: 86; cf. Lefebvre 1991a: 14; Fraser 2008: 343–44). Why is this so? This is so, first and foremost because philosophers ‘from Plato to Hegel’ have long ‘thought the city’—they have ‘brought to language and concept urban life’ (Lefebvre 1996: 86).

Philosophy has long influenced how we view ourselves, the city and our relationship to it. It is thus appropriate to speak of the role of philosophy in the ‘elaboration of theoretical knowledge’ (Lefebvre 1996: 87). Philosophy has long been an activity with consequences not merely theoretical but practical, both explicit and implicit, and now historical and enduring. Part of the commonsensical distance that obtains between ‘the city’ and ‘the urban’ is due, no doubt, to a pernicious philosophical legacy; perhaps that same legacy which has conceptually distanced the city from country, the theoretical from the practical, culture from nature, Being from thought, the spoken from the written and so on (Lefebvre 1996: 87–88). Philosophical thought understood in this way as the creation and mediation of concepts—not an unproblematic activity, to be sure—is nevertheless fundamental.

But we must recognize that philosophy is also, itself, a nuanced concept with two diverging meanings. On one hand—taken as a pattern of thought necessarily linked to social development and more recently to modern industrialization and radical shifts in contemporary urbanization—philosophy has sought to reach ‘totality through speculative systematization’ (Lefebvre 1996: 86). Whether we take it as one of the many origins of alienation, an effect of alienating processes or an aspect of these processes (Lefebvre 1991b: 249), philosophical thought has sought to

fragment a whole world into manageable pieces, all of them objects seemingly boasting their own autonomy. In this way—and particularly since the ninteenth century—a bourgeois scientific and fragmented understanding of knowledge has sought to frame even the city as a simple object (Lefebvre 1996: 94–99; 2003a: 49; Fraser 2011).1 This invocation of philosophy is suspect, as are all attempts to fragment experience into self–sufficient realms, ripe for analysis and of course potentially also for profit (by whom? for whom? we must ask). And yet, on the other hand, the philosophical systematization and speculation whose role has been to produce partial knowledge and to fragment totality is paradoxically crucial if we are to recover a total sense of the urban phenomenon, the notion of urban totality, for: ‘only philosophy had and still has the sense of the total’ (Lefebvre 1996: 175; also 2003a: 56). In his many works, Lefebvre admits the flaws of philosophy; but he nonetheless recuperates its potential ‘to reclaim or create totality. The philosopher does not acknowledge separation, he does not conceive that the world, life, society, the cosmos (and later, history) can no longer make a Whole’ (Lefebvre 1996: 88). Lefebvre thus makes use of philosophy in order to turn thought back upon itself; a maneuver not unlike Bergson’s insistence, before him, that ‘We must do violence to the mind’ (1998: 30; also Bergson 2002: 188–200; Fraser 2008).2 […]

If the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies has a single goal— and of course it may have more than one—it is to affirm the interdisciplinary nature of the urban phenomenon. It is time to assert the need to work across disciplinary boundaries, the need to return both the humanities and the social sciences to a common and complex world, the need to rethink a great many things indeed. While it is clearly not the only possible starting point for urban cultural studies research, Henri Lefebvre’s work taken as a whole highlights two points of absolutely essential relevance for the approach that, with time, may come to be the hallmark of our publication. After all, ‘The essence of a thing never appears at the outset, but in the idle, in the course of its development, when its strength is assured’ (Deleuze 2003: 3).

Every specialized science cuts from the global phenomenon a ‘field,’ or ‘domain’, which it illuminates in its own way.

There is no point in choosing between segmentation and illumination. Moreover, each individual science is further fragmented into specialized subdisciplines. Sociology is divided up into political sociology, economic sociology, rural and urban sociology, and so forth. The fragmented and specialized sciences operate analytically: they are the result of an analysis and perform analyses of their own. In terms of the urban phenomenon considered as a whole, geography, demography, history, psychology, and sociology supply the results of an analytical procedure. Nor should we overlook the contributions of the biologist, doctor or psychiatrist, or those of the novelist or poet (…) Without the progressive and regressive movements (in time and space) of analysis, without the multiple divisions and fragmentations, it would be impossible to conceive of a science of the urban phenomenon. But such fragments do not constitute knowledge.

(Lefebvre 2003a: 48–49)

In order to recompose and thus understand the ‘totality’ of the urban phenomenon we must go beyond the often self– congratulatory and always spatializing discourse of disciplinary specialization (Lefebvre 2003a: 53–54, 58–59). Put another way, no ‘collection of objects—economy, sociology, history, demography…’ can reconstitute the complexity of the urban phenomenon (Lefebvre 2003a: 57). Lefebvre asks a most pertinent question, given these dynamics: ‘How can we make the transition from fragmentary knowledge to complete understanding?’ (Lefebvre 2003a: 56, original emphasis). While the formation of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies is not itself an answer, it is our hope that it will evolve to be a forum for examining this question and for understanding all of the dimensions of the urban phenomenon.

The second point, which follows organically from the first, is that the role of the arts and the humanities are crucial within Lefebvre’s work. We saw above that the ‘contributions (…) of the novelist or poet’ should not be overlooked en route to understanding the urban. If Lefebvre had taken to heart one of the common reductions of Marxian thought, he might have seen culture as a mere superstructure to the economic base of capitalist activity, he might have seen it as a special semi–autonomous case, unrelated in principle to the core matters of social life— but he did not do so (Lefebvre 2005: 16; Léger 2006: 143; cf.

Hemingway 2006; Lang and Williams 1972). His early years were spent drinking ‘wine and coffee with leading Dadaists and surrealists (like Tristan Tzara and André Breton)’ (Merrifield 2002: 72; Elden and Lebas 2003: xvi) and moving in literary and artistic circles (Burkhard 2000). Over the course of his life he wrote a number of works devoted specifically to art and culture (Elden and Lebas 2003: xiii; see also Lefebvre 2003b; Léger 2006: 145; Poster 1975; Kelly 1982).3 Perhaps the most important of these (still untranslated into English, although a Spanish translation does exist) is La présence et l’absence (1980; La presencia y la ausencia 2006), wherein he advances a still underappreciated theory of the work of art within urban society.

The present editorial (part one of two) is not the place to examine this aspect of Lefebvre’s work in depth, but rather to be rr inspired by his insistence on the importance of art and culture

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The first point of interest is Lefebvre’s unrelenting insistence on the interdisciplinary character of urban inquiry.

It is the complexity of the urban phenomenon which ‘makes interdisciplinary cooperation essential’ given that it ‘cannot be grasped by any specialized science’ (Lefebvre 2003a: 53). The specializations that structure our universities, that condition our fields and publications, and that discipline successive generations of scholars may have their strengths, but by themselves they are incomplete. Moreover, without the persistent questioning and reconciliatory activity of philosophical thought, existing disciplinary specializations, too, risk complicity with the ideological tenor of urbanism. The fragmentary character of knowledge—knowledge understood as a bourgeois science— cannot be separated from the social division of labor (Lefebvre 2003a: 60), and thus is one manifestation of a much farther reaching process which we might call of the spatializing logic of contemporary urban capitalism.

“If the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies has a single goal – and of course it may have more than one – it is to affirm the interdisciplinary nature of the urban phenomenon.”

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in general. Culture is implicated as a battleground through his insistence in Critique of Everyday Life that daily life has been colonized; its importance is signaled by his observation in The Production of Space that the world has been partitioned into zones of work and zones of leisure; and it is directly included in his critique of disciplinary knowledge in The Urban Revolution.

Art and culture constitute no inconsequential area of human practice, but another potential staging area for far-reaching social change. ‘The work of art and the artist together propose to exalt experience, and even to transfigure it’ (Lefebvre 2006: 247, my translation).4 In The Right to the City, Lefebvre writes of ‘putting art at the service of the urban’: To put art at the service of the urban does not mean to prettify urban space with works of art. […] Leaving aside representation, ornamentation and decoration, art can become praxis and poiesis on a social scale: the art of living in the city as work of art. […] In other words, the future of art is not artistic, but urban, because the future of ‘man’ is not discovered in the cosmos, or in the people, or in production, but in urban society.

(Lefebvre 1996: 173) The work of art, he writes—the city as a work of art, by which he means something specific, but difficult to explore in the current context—is ‘more closely related to use value than to exchange value’ (Lefebvre 1996: 75). Art and culture do not merely provide a way forward for reconciling alienated, fragmented models of knowledge inherited from the nineteenth century with experience, urbanized forms of consciousness with the conditions of urbanized capital; they also serve to render visible alienation and contradiction, and just as important, to invite dialogue. In truth, art and culture serve as one point of entry unto the totality of urban society.

It is a short-sighted and simple view (if not an alienated and alienating one) to think that both artistic production in general and the artistic product specifically—both the artist and the art scholar—do not have a role to play in making the urban revolution possible. The pages of the Journal of Urban Cultural

Studies are devoted to examining what this role has been, what it is and what it may be… t This is an excerpt from the inaugural editorial of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies.

Read on Benjamin Fraser – The College of Charleston – Editor of Journal of Urban Cultural Studies – ISSN: 20509790. This journal is part of the Cultural Studies Collection.

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS Benjamin Fraser is the Executive Editor of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, the Managing Editor of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies and an Associate Professor at the College of Charleston (South Carolina, USA). He has published over nine single-authored/(co-)edited books, including Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience: Reading the Mobile City (Bucknell UP, 2011); and over fifty articles in journals such as Social and Cultural Geography (2007), Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (2008), Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies (2009, 2010), Cultural Studies (2010), Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds (2011), Emotion, Space and Society (2011), Punk & PostPunk (2012) and Studies in Hispanic Cinemas (2007, 2012).

Notes 1 ‘Philosophy is thus born from the city, with its division of labour and multiple modalities. It becomes itself a specialized activity in its own right. But it does not become fragmentary’ (Lefebvre 1996: 88). Also: ‘The concept of a scientific object, although convenient and easy, is deliberately simplistic and may conceal another intention: a strategy of fragmentation designed to promote a unitary and synthetic, and therefore authoritarian, model. An object is isolating, even if conceived as a system of relations and even if those relations are connected to other systems. […] The concept of the city no longer corresponds to a social object’ (Lefebvre 2003a: 57).

2 In Creative Evolution, Bergson writes ‘we must do violence to the mind, go counter to the natural bent of the intellect. But

ABBREVIATED REFERENCES Bergson, Henri ([1934] 2002), The Creative Mind (trans. Mabelle L. Andison), NY: Citadel Press. ([1907] 1998), Creative Evolution (trans. A. Mitchell. Mineola), New York: Dover Publications Inc. Burkhard, Bud (2000), French Marxism between the Wars: Henri Lefebvre and the Philosophies, Amherst: Humanity Books.

Deleuze, Gilles ([1983] 2003), Cinema I: The Movement–Image (trans. Hugh Tomlinson & Barbara Habberjam), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Elden, Stuart and Elizabeth Lebas (2003), ‘Introduction: Coming to terms with Lefebvre’, in S. Elden, E. Lebas and E. Kofman (eds.), Henri Lefebvre: Key Writings, New York; London: Continuum, pp. xi–xix.

Fraser, Benjamin (2011), Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience: Reading the Mobile City, Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.

(2010), Encounters with Bergson(ism) in Spain: Reconciling Philosophy, Literature, Film and Urban Space, Chapel Hill: UNC Department of Romance Languages [Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures #295].

(2008), ‘Toward a philosophy of the urban: Henri Lefebvre’s uncomfortable application of Bergsonism’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26: 2, pp. 338–58.

Hemingway, Andrew, ed. (2006), Marxism and the History of Art: From William Morris to the New Left, London: Pluto Press.

Kelly, Michael, (1982), Modern French Marxism, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lang, Berel and Forrest Williams, eds. (1972), Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism, New York: David McKay Company.

Lefebvre, Henri, (2006), La presencia la ausencia: Contribución a la teoría de las representaciones (trans. Óscar Barahona and Uxoa Doyhamboure), México D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica. ([1981] 2005), Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 3 (trans. Gregory Elliott), London; New York: Verso. ([1970] 2003a), The Urban Revolution, (trans. Robert Bononno), Minneapolis: University Minnesota Press.

(2003b), Henri Lefebvre: Key Writings (S. Elden, E. Lebas and E. Kofman, eds.), New York; London: Continuum.

(1996), The Right to the City, in Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities (e.d & trans. E. Kofman and E. Lebas), Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 63–181.

(1991a), The Production of Space (trans. Donald Nicholson– Smith), Oxford: Blackwell. ([1947] 1991b), Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 1 (trans. John Moore), London; New York: Verso.

(1980), La présence et l’absence: Contribution à la théorie des représentations. Paris: Caterman.

Léger, Marc James (2006), ‘Henri Lefebvre and the moment of the aesthetic’, in Andrew Hemingway (ed.), Marxism and the History of Art: From William Morris to the New Left, London: Pluto Press, pp. 143–60.

Merrifield, Andy (2002), Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City, London; New York: Routledge.

Poster, Michael (1975), Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Unamuno, Miguel de. ([1907] 1954), Tragic Sense of Life (trans.

J.E. Crawford Filch), New York: Dover.

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that is just the function of philosophy’ (1998: 30). See also Unamuno’s thoughts in Tragic Sense of Life (1954; and on Bergson and Unamuno’s shared methodology, Fraser 2010).

3 Among the many books that deal specifically with art and culture are ‘Rabelais et l’émergence du capitalisme (written 1949– 53, published 1955), Contribution à l’esthétique (1953), Musset (1955), Pignon (1956), Trois textes pour le théâtre (1972) and La Présence et l’absence (1980)’ (Léger 2006: 143).

4 ‘La obra de arte y el artista se proponen exaltarla, incluso transfigurarla [la vivencia]’ (Lefebvre 2006: 247).

editorial from

Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art

by Paul Gladston – University of Nottingham – Editor of Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art

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The principal aim of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art is to publish scholarly peer-reviewed articles and reviews alongside other documentation related to the making, showing and reception of contemporary Chinese art. It is hoped that as a consequence the journal will promote searching critical debate and academic rigour in the emerging field of contemporary Chinese art studies.

There is a significant and growing body of published writing on the subject of contemporary Chinese art. While much of that writing is valuable in terms of its critical and/or historical content, relatively little follows closely the established conventions of academic discourse. Moreover, there are conspicuous divisions in cultural outlook between those who uphold internationally dominant western(ized) art world perspectives associated with the critical turn in the humanities since the mid-twentieth century and others, predominantly within the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and other parts of East Asia, who eschew such thinking in favour of an often resistant cultural essentialism.

JCCA seeks to problematize and perhaps go beyond this prevailing and ultimately unresolvable cultural contestation by bringing differing critical perspectives together as part of a continuing polylogue with the potential to open up each to the positioning of others while internally dividing and questioning the authority of all. As the intercultural philosopher Franz Martin Wimmer has argued, in order to go beyond the rash universalism or relativistic particularism of philosophical thinking conducted from a single cultural point of view, it is necessary to engage critically with other cultural perspectives in the form of such a polylogue or ‘dialogue of many’ (Wimmer 2004: 5).

Another feature of prevailing discourses on the subject of what has come to be known as contemporary Chinese art is the predominant focus on work produced by Chinese from the PRC whether working within or outside it. This has resulted in an increasingly widespread use of the terms ‘contemporary art in China’ or ‘contemporary art from China’ in international contexts rather than ‘contemporary Chinese art’, which can be taken to imply an essentializing sense of cultural ‘Chineseness’.

The focus on art produced by Chinese from the PRC has tended to eclipse research into and critical discussion of the wider field

of contemporary art related to Chinese cultural identity. This wider field not only includes contemporary art produced in contested spaces such as Taiwan, as well as Chinese diasporic communities worldwide, but also art produced by non-Chinese with a relationship to (what might be perceived as) Chinese cultural thought and practice (e.g. the work of Brice Marden and Bill Viola). JCCA welcomes contributions that address aspects of this expanded field of study. The use of the term ‘contemporary Chinese art’ in the journal’s title is therefore intended to point beyond its more usual connotations as well as those associated with the terms ‘contemporary art in China’ and ‘contemporary art from China’.

This first edition of JCCA contains articles that approach the subject of contemporary Chinese art from a wide range of differing cultural and methodological perspectives. Thomas J. Berghuis’s ‘History and Community in Contemporary Chinese Art’ seeks to draw attention to ways in which contemporary Chinese art is linked to history and community and in doing so to give renewed focus to the role of the avant-garde in Chinese art today. Frank Vigneron’s ‘“Conservative Nativist” Chinese Art in Hong Kong and Mainland China’ addresses the relationship between discourses on ‘nativism’ and ‘cultural conservatism’ and contemporary forms of Chinese ink and brush painting, concluding that government institutions and departments in the PRC have been instrumental in the promotion and expansion of the field of Ink art. Laia Monelles Moner’s article ‘Explorations of Genealogy in Experimental Art in China’ aims to show how different artists propose an approach to their own family tree and, at the same time, examines new family relationships being established currently in China. Linda Pittwood’s ‘The Headless Woman in Contemporary Chinese Art’ focuses on selected works by four Chinese artists, all of which share the motif of the headless woman. This motif is explored in the context of the lives of women in the PRC following the end of the Cultural Revolution as well as in relation to ideas about individualism and collectivism. Bao Dong’s ‘Rethinking and Practices within the Art System: The Self-Organization of Contemporary Art in China, 2001–2012’ discusses the characteristics and background of the phenomenon of self-organized collectives formed by the younger

Paul Gladston, Nottingham, January 2014

Read on Paul Gladston – University of Nottingham – Editor of Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art – ISSN: 20517041. This journal is part of the Visual Arts Collection.

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS Paul Gladston is Associate Professor of Culture, Film and Media and director of the Centre for Contemporary East-Asian Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham. Between 2005 and 2010 he served as inaugural head of the School of International Communications and director of the Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.

He has written extensively on the subject of contemporary Chinese art with particular reference to the concerns of critical theory.

His recent book-length publications include Contemporary Art in Shanghai: Conversations with Seven Chinese Artists (Timezone 8/Blue Kingfisher 2011), a special issue of the Journal of Visual Art Practice, ‘Contemporary Chinese art and Criticality’, co-edited with Katie Hill (Intellect 2012), ‘Avant-Garde’ Art Groups in China, 1979–1989 (Intellect/University of Chicago 2013) and Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History (Reaktion 2014). He is principal editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and was an academic adviser to the exhibition ‘Art of Change: New Directions from China’, which was staged at the Southbank Centre in London in 2012.

References Wimmer, Franz Martin (2004), Interkulturelle Philosophie. Vienna: UTB.

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generation of Chinese artists after the year 2000. It argues that the self-organizational practices of young artists today constitutes rethinking and critique of newly institutionalized systems of cultural production within the PRC. Jörg Huber and Eva Lüdi Kong’s Conversation ‘Care of the Self ’ examines closely the current situation in China and its resonances in art. Jörg Huber asks how contemporary Chinese artworks approach the ‘body as a theme’, as well as the situation ‘in the West’, where the question of the body and subjectification is highly topical. Eva Lüdi Kong responds by drawing on Chinese philosophy and cultural history, which place these questions and issues in a larger context. Also included in this edition are three book reviews: Franziska Koch reviews Birgit Hopfener’s Installationskunst in China. Transkulturelle Reflexionsräume einer Genealogie des Performativen [Installation Art in China. Transcultural Spaces Reflecting a Genealogy of the Performative], Luke Robinson reviews Jörg Huber and Zhao Chuan’s The Body at Stake: Experiments in Chinese Contemporary Art and Theatre and Andrew Stooke reviews Paul Gladston’s AvantGarde Art Groups in China, 1979–1989.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Chris Smith, editor of the Journal of Visual Art Practice who graciously allowed the journal to be used as a platform for what amounted to a pilot issue of the JCCA. Without Chris’s generosity and support, publication of JCCA may not have been possible. We are very much in his debt.

I would also like to thank the editorial board of the journal, not least for their contributions to the sometimes difficult and sensitive business of peer-review. In addition, I would like to thank everyone who submitted writing to the journal regardless of whether theirs was accepted for publication or not. A journal is nothing without the courage and hard work of its writers. Thanks are also due to Masoud Yazdani for contracting the journal and all of those at Intellect who have been involved in its production and marketing.

Illustration as interactive, collaborative practice

by Luise Vormittag – Container – Contributor to Journal of Illustration

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IQ 2014 Journals Figure 1: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, publication cover.

Introduction

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Illustration, as a profession, is currently faced with vast changes in its traditional client base: advertising and publishing clients are adapting to an increasingly digital and social-media landscape.

The global financial crisis has also dramatically affected advertising budgets (Dennis 2012). As a result, conventional commissioning patterns for illustrators have been affected.

Advertising agencies are reacting by expecting designers and illustrators to produce more work for reduced budgets (Dennis 2012), while publishers are yet to take full advantage of the visual potential of digital platforms such as illustrated book apps (Brocklehurst 2012). Illustrators, meanwhile, find themselves in a situation where their two traditional income streams are noticeably reduced.

Faced with these challenges, it is a good moment to examine related fields in the creative industries, to see which ideas and methodologies may inspire illustrators to expand and develop their practice.

In the context of fine art, a number of terms and practices have emerged over the last decades that centre around social engagement and collaboration. They have been discussed and labelled in numerous ways, including: relational aesthetics (Nicolas Bourriaud 2002), new genre public art (Suzanne Lacy 1995), connective aesthetics (Suzy Gablik 1992), and dialogical aesthetics (Grant Kester 2004). Some of these forms of practice build on sensibilities and methodologies more commonly associated with illustration and design practice: empathetically assessing the needs of a community or audience, collaboratively developing a response to those needs and giving that response aesthetic form.

At the same time the world of design has seen a flourishing of initiatives and methodologies that emphasize social and ethical factors. Examples include enterprises such as the ‘What Design Can Do’ initiative in Amsterdam (http://www.whatdesigncando. nl), ‘Design to Improve Life’ in Copenhagen (http://www. designtoimprovelife.dk) and IDEO’s ‘Human Centered Design’ (http://www.hcdconnect.org). These new fields of design have been called ‘design thinking’ (e.g. Tim Brown 2009), ‘social

design’ (e.g. Jocelyn Bailey 2012) or ‘participatory design’ (e.g.

Henry Sanoff 2006). While these initiatives and methodologies embody a variety of values and goals, they all share an emphasis on ethical, social and environmental considerations above aesthetic or commercial drivers.

Meanwhile, the illustration industry has continued expanding individuals’ practices to include self-initiated work, exhibitions in gallery contexts and the sale of prints and objects (canvas bags, zines, tea towels, toys, etc.) at least in part to make up for the lack of traditional commissions. In the United Kingdom, the biggest and best-known manifestation of this trend is the ‘Pick Me Up’ fair at Somerset House – now in its fourth successive year, where the work is labelled ‘graphic art’ and the majority of it is for sale. Pick Me Up was famously criticized by Lawrence Zeegen in the March 2012 issue of Creative Review magazine, in which he provocatively asks whether the work is anything more than ‘eye candy’ and ‘mere nothingness’, describing it as a symptom of an inward-looking discipline ‘unable to peer over the fence at a world outside its own garden’ (Zeegen 2012).

The conclusion to be drawn from the existence of Pick Me Up and similar events and sales outlets is that there is a great willingness to create and an enormous surplus of energy amongst the contemporary illustration community that is not being exhausted by traditional commissions.

But could this energy not be channelled into other directions, too? Indeed, the discipline is already witnessing some emerging practices such as illustrated ‘reportage’ journalism and innovative educational platforms such as the House of Illustration’s ‘Picture It’ program. The alternative proposed in this article is of illustration as a dialogical, socially engaged practice, in which content is generated through dialogue and engagement with communities or individuals.

Illustration: An Expanded Perspective I will now introduce a projects of my own (undertaken as ‘Container’ with my colleagues Nicola Carter and Patricia Niven) that attempts to expand the discipline of illustration in a way that reflects some of the ideas discussed above. This project

rr

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was commissioned and financed by VitalArts, an independently funded UK National Health Service associated arts charity that works to support the well-being of patients and staff.

In Throw Caution to the Wind (2011–12), the brief was to deliver a project that engaged elderly patients in the orthopaedic ward of the Royal London Hospital and the chemotherapy ward at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. We responded with a series of semistructured conversations that were designed to guide patients to narrate an event or a period in their life that they remembered as invigorating. We spent 30–60 minutes with each patient, and recorded our conversations. Later we transcribed and edited their stories and illustrated them – using drawing, photography, set design or a mixture of techniques – collating all the spoken transcripts and images in a small booklet. In addition to sending a copy to all contributors this booklet was distributed free to new patients in the two hospitals via the tea trolley. These new patients were invited to write to us with their adventures – which they did.

After a certain period we selected a mixture of the old and new stories and created accompanying three-dimensional illustrations, which now form permanent exhibits in the new Royal London Hospital building.

While this project was produced under particular conditions in and for a health-care environment, a similar methodology could be used in a variety of settings catering for a broad range of communities. What makes this kind of work promising for the discipline of illustration is a twofold expansion of the illustrator’s remit and project range. Illustrators continue to use their core skills: visualizing content in order to communicate with a specific audience. Additionally they take responsibility for generating content through outward-facing engagement with a community, while also having a stake in the methods of distribution.

In traditional editorial or advertising commissions neither content generation nor distribution is the responsibility of the illustrator. Including these areas in a project’s scope provides higher levels of control over the illustrator’s own practice as well as a wealth of new creative considerations and challenges.

By conceiving a project holistically there is a shift away from just considering the actual image, its technique, composition, narrativity, expression, etc., and a whole set of additional questions is brought into play. How was the content generated?

Whose interests are being served? Who are the stakeholders?

Who contributed? How did they contribute? How did this affect the image-making process? How was the content edited and utilized? How does the end product operate? What form does it take? How is it distributed? How does this relate to the brief, the stakeholders and the contributors? What is the overall internal logic of the project?

In the fine art practices discussed earlier in this article the ‘work’ is situated in the exchange that takes place – not in any final object. The dialogue or the interaction constitutes the work.

In a recent article for Varoom magazine, scholar Stephanie Black picks up on how this might lead to a situation where the work is missed (Black 2012). It is possible that debris, having accumulated as a result of an interaction or dialogue, might be mistaken for the work.1 Designers, on the other hand, tend to use a dialogical engagement phase pragmatically in terms of the knowledge and

the insights that can be drawn out of those encounters.

The project described here lends this engagement phase hybrid status. It is a research and development phase, but it also has intrinsic value in itself. Being playful and thoughtful with this phase adds a valuable dimension to the projects and may also result in the generation of more unusual content than conventional research methods. In Container’s project described here the content is then used as the basis for the next phase: developing a visual outcome.

Producing an outcome and squarely taking responsibility for it also highlights the practitioner’s authorial presence. This is more honest than claims of inclusivity and the breakdown of institutional barriers. Whilst a practice such as Rikrit Tiravanija’s aims to construct frameworks for democratic engagement, the framework itself is authored by the artist under specific sociopolitical conditions and therefore cannot be construed as neutral.

Final Remarks Fine art practices can be instructive in regards to the potential of an encounter – beyond the more sober ‘field work’ and ‘research’ conducted for many design projects that tend to borrow methods from anthropology and sociology. There is the possibility to be experimental and draw up imaginative frameworks for dialogue and exchange that have the potential to enrich illustrators’ practice.

On the other hand, illustrators can borrow from design’s ‘constructive mode of thinking’ (Cross 1982). A concern for practicality, ingenuity, empathy and appropriateness constitute core values often referred to in design practice (Wood 1999; Cross 1982). Illustrators can pair this pragmatic approach with their propensity for imaginative visual flair. In recent years design has successfully expanded its remit by referring back to its core capabilities and applying these to new territories, giving birth to ‘design thinking’. If illustrators focus on their practice in terms of core values, skills and objectives, rather than in purely pictorial terms, might it be possible to develop something akin to ‘illustration thinking’? (O’Reilly 2013).

Traditionally, commercial illustrators often find themselves at the bottom of the ‘food chain’: generally, by the time a project reaches them, the commissioner has little time, money and nerve for negotiation. Frequently, illustrators are hired to fill a gap, usually under time pressure. This pressure might stimulate and heighten creativity in some scenarios, but it also puts the illustrator in a position of having little influence over the projects of which their work is a part. The alternative scenario – working on self-initiated projects and producing work for sale at pop-up shops or events like Pick Me Up, does not suffer drawbacks from hierarchical project structures, but it has its own set of shortcomings. While this model is certainly fruitful for some practitioners it does not offer much support or foster engagement. Illustrators carry the risk of investing time and money in their projects with no guaranteed financial outcome or career gain. This type of work also has a tendency to be insular, as highlighted so vociferously by Zeegen (2012).

There is the possibility to build an expanded practice: rr by scrutinizing related fields in the creative industries and

37 Figure 3: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, publication spread.

Figure 4: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, publication spread.

Figure 5: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, publication spread.

Cultural Studies

Figure 2: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, publication spread.

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Figure 6: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, installation view.

Figure 7: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, installation view.

Figure 8: Container (2012), Throw Caution to the Wind, London, installation view.

Figure 9: Container (2012), The Most Powerful Cabinet in Whitechapel, London, performance and installation view.

Figure 10: Container (2012), The Most Powerful Cabinet in Whitechapel, London, performance and installation view.

Figure 11: Container (2012), The Most Powerful Cabinet in Whitechapel, London, performance and installation view.

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Figure 12: Container (2012), The Most Powerful Cabinet in Whitechapel, London, installation view.

Figure 13: Mitch Miller (2012), The Concierge Station.

simultaneously by reflecting on, discussing and referring back to illustration’s core values, skills and objectives. If these are construed as lending visual form to externally given content for the benefit of a particular audience, this opens up questions of how content is arrived at and how the resulting work is to be distributed. Both those questions open up rich possibilities for the discipline to engage in the world ‘beyond its own garden’. t

Read On Luise Vormittag – Container – contributor to Journal of Illustration, – ISSN: 20520204. This journal is part of the Visual Arts Collection.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank John O’Reilly for introducing me to his idea of ‘illustration thinking’, Stephanie Black for inspiration and encouragement and Adrian Holme for his generous support with my writing.

Endnotes 40

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1 She is referring here to an account by Claire Bishop of a disappointing and confusing experience when visiting a Tiravanija piece, when no activity was taking place (Bishop 2006).

The left-over rubbish could easily be mistaken for the actual work.

Black points out that illustrators are more likely to present the audience with a carefully crafted object that would not allow for that kind of confusion or disappointment (Black 2012).

REFERENCES Bailey, J. (2012), ‘Role of social design in public services’, Guardian online, Public Leaders Network, 19 April, http://www.guardian. co.uk/public-leaders-network/2012/apr/18/social-design-publicservices. Accessed 15 December 2012.

Bishop, C. (2004), ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October, 110 (Fall), pp. 51–79.

(2006), ‘The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents’, Artforum, February, pp. 178–83.

(2012), Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London and New York: Verso.

Black, S. (2012), ‘Rear view mirror’, Varoom, 18, pp. 54–59.

Bourriaud, N. (2002), Relational Aesthetics, Dijon-Qetigny: Les Presses du reel.

Brocklehurst, J. (2012), ‘Tap My Drawings: The State of Play in Illustrated Book Apps’, Varoomlab, 1, pp. 25–44.

Brown, T. (2009), Change by Design, New York: Harper Collins.

Coles, A. (2010), ‘Designart’, Art Monthly, 334 (March), pp. 7–10.

(2012), The Transdisciplinary Studio, Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Cross, N. (1982), ‘Designerly ways of knowing’, Design Studies, 3: 4, pp. 221–27.

D&AD (2013), Professional Awards: White Pencil – What is it?, http:// www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2013/prices. Accessed 3 September 2013 De Bretteville, S. (2010), Woman’s Building History, online video, Otis College, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGJUbYc5O98.

Accessed 20 December 2012.

Dennis, T. (2012), Advertising in the 21st Century’, ComputerArts Collection, 1: 6, pp. 68–76.

Gablik, S. (1992), ‘Connective Aesthetics’, American Art, 6: 2, pp. 2–7.

Harrison, C. and Wood, P. (eds) (1992), Art in Theory 1900–1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford: Blackwell.

Heller, C. (2012), ‘Where design is going and how to be there’, How Magazine, November, pp. 64–69.

Hvid, K. (year unknown), Who is INDEX: Design to Improve Life®?, online video, http://www.designtoimprovelife.dk/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30&Itemid=8.

Accessed 15 December 2012.

IDEO (2011), Human Centered Design Toolkit, 2nd edn., Palo Alto: self-published.

Kester, G. (2004), Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lacy, S. (ed.) (1995), Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Seattle: Bay Press.

(2011), Woman’s Building History, online video, Otis College, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-11jjp1i7M. Accessed 20 December 2012.

(2012), The Crystal Quilt, online video, Tate Modern: The Tanks, 18 July 2012–20 January 2013, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/ tate-modern-tanks/display/suzanne-lacy-crystal-quilt. Accessed 3 November 2012.

Kittelmann, U. (ed.) (1996), Rikrit Tiravanija: Untitled, 1996 (Tomorrow is another day), Cologne: Salon Verlag and Kölnischer Kunstverein.

Maeda, J. (2012), How Art, Technology and Design Inform Creative Leaders, online video, TED talks, http://www.ted.com/talks/john_ maeda_how_art_technology_and_design_inform_creative_ leaders.html. Accessed 3 November 2012.

Miller, M. (2013), ‘Drawing Duke Street’, at Spatialising Illustration conference, Metropolitan University Swansea, 25 January 2013.

O’Reilly, J. (2013), personal communication during Spatialising Illustration conference, Metropolitan University Swansea, 25 January 2013.

Sanoff, H. (2006), ‘Multiple view of participatory design’, META Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, 23: 2, pp. 131–43.

Taylor, D. (2012), Human Centred Design for Rural Myanmar, online video, Proximity Design Vimeo Channel, http://vimeo. com/41010626. Accessed 26 January 2013.

Van der Laken, R. (ed.) (2012), What Design Can Do, Amsterdam: self-published.

Wood, J. (1999), ‘The Culture of Academic Rigour: Does Design Research Really Need It?’, in Conference Proceedings, Design Cultures conference, Sheffield University, March–April 1999.

Zeegen, L. (2012), ‘Where’s the content? Where’s the comment?’, Creative Review, March, pp. 52–53.

Dancing the sacred

by Amanda Williamson & Jill Hayes – Chichester University – Editors of Dance, Movement & Spirituality

The influence of non-western dance forms and their sacred natures has long been a fertile ground to which western dance studies has turned for artistic and spiritual inspiration. Such influences, while widely recognised in modern dance, are continuous in our postmodern dancing climate, yet often under-acknowledged. Within this issue, we view how Iyengar yoga, Bharatha Natyam and seiki jutsu inform current dance practice and academic inquiry; we have previously published work on Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, trancing in the tradition of western theatrical dance, belly dance and Islamic influences in contemporary dance practice. This journal provides a platform for documenting the ongoing influence of various non-western sacred/spiritual practices in western educational dance contexts, highlighting spiritual diversity and plurality, evidencing an enduring relationship between the sacred, spirituality, art, dance and movement, and notably in an era marked by disenchantment.

This first issue alone contains research into a wide range of movement-practices and dance forms; for example, Bharatha Natyam, Iyengar yoga, Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, West African dance and seiki jutsu, as well as worship among contemporary evangelical, charismatic Christians. Other research topics include critical postcolonial dance discourse, reflections on the spirituality of modern dance choreographer Dianne McIntyre, the Cuban social salsa dance rueda de casino, and community dance research explored through somatic principles. Mairead Vaughan focuses on how the principles of Bharatha Natyam and Iyengar yoga influence her creative, choreographic work, while Aparna Ramaswamy and Daniel Deslauriers research commonalities in the emerging spiritual experience of two different dance forms: Bharatha Natyam and Contact Improvisation. The journal raises issues related to intercultural and cross-cultural spirituality, fusion, hybridity, and the migration and melding of sacred forms within increased globalization.

The topic of spirituality occupies a fascinating yet complicated space in western dance history. On the one hand, dance is rooted in the ancient sacred, but on the other hand, the dance studies’ curricula we know today developed within our modern secular education system. While modern dance rejected materialism and r r

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We are delighted to present the first issue of the Dance, Movement & Spiritualities – a journal dedicated to the academic study of spiritualities in a wide variety of international dance and movement contexts. The creation of this journal developed through a number of curiosities, questions, observations and reflections. Over the past two decades an increasing number of undergraduate and postgraduate students have inquired whether research into spirituality and dance is academically acceptable – a subject worthy of a dissertation – and if so, where are the theoretical, historical and methodological resources? Listening to these students, who possess a keen intellectual and artistic curiosity in the contemporary spiritual, reveals and necessitates developing the complicated (sometimes contentious and messy) business of spirituality and dance in higher education – perhaps supporting a perceptual shift in approaching spirituality academically – from the ephemeral and elusive (sometimes perceived fanciful) into more grounded approaches. Noting a substantial lack of academic literature within this area, the journal aims to provide a much needed resource for students and lecturers alike in an era where spiritual dance is evidently taking many new directions, innovative formations and expressions.

It is curious that there is such a large number of non-academic books on the market (many New Age in flavour), indicating a spiritual renaissance in dance in contemporary western (largely secular) societies (Amoda 2001; Darling Khan and Darling Khan 2009; O’Hanlon 2007; Roth 1997; Winton-Henry 2009). Yet notably, there are few corresponding academic resources that analyse, theorize or historicize this renewed interest in sacred/spiritual dance in contemporary times. Is there a parallel spiritual renaissance within university dance departments, and if so, how is this renewed interest dealt with academically? Is it obscured? Is it valued? Is it too challenging? Dance history has a long-standing relationship with the ancient sacred; nonetheless, research into how spirituality is constructed, expressed and/or somatically, culturally and historically experienced in our higher education dance curricula is minimal.

We often read that dance was once deeply sacred but is now a secular activity (dance history tends to present a linear secularization theory); but does such a model obscure and overwrite other, more complex and hidden spiritual dance histories?

“The journal advances a new area of scholarship through methods that require both a challenging and inspiring of the academe.�

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affirmed intuition, feeling and the immaterial realm as a source of spiritual knowledge, dance in higher education is nonetheless institutionalized within the non-religious, materialist and cultural materialist discourses on which much of our higher education system is built. Subsequently, one can view how spirituality in dance has tended to retain its centrality in non-western scholarship, but also how it has struggled to find high-profile platforms for debate and discussion in western contexts. Classical and folk traditions from both western and non-western contexts are rooted in spirituality, and provide a rich source for enquiry into the numinous in dance. Such influences and sacred roots allow a certain degree of visibility for the study of spirituality in dance in higher education, yet it is rare to find university dance departments that offer the study of spiritualties in contemporary contexts and western cultures. While our higher education system prides itself on being secular, one cannot help but notice the presence and expression of variant spiritualities in dance studies internationally. The advent and growth of dance studies as an accepted academic subject sets forth major challenges in higher education; it potentially disrupts our secular university contexts through explorations into interiority, the imagination, symbol, myth, metaphor, sensory touch and communal and ecosomatic connections, emotionality, affect, and multi-sensory and intuitive experiences. As such, dance studies is unique in the world of secular higher education. The academic and artistic centralization of the whole body learning through multi-sensory dimensions and experiences in dance departments plays a major part not only in opposing the male-centred dualistic roots of higher education that diminish the role of the body in the acquisition of knowledge, but also, potentially, the secular roots of the modern education system.

Currently, dance in higher education is heavily shaped by the advent and growth of variant somatic movement/ dance modalities, and their co-extensive emphasis on the felt internal (deep interiority) and external (socio-communal/ ecological/political) life of the body. These somatic movement dance modalities are related to wider cultural movements in spirituality and religiosity, such as deep ecology, feminist spiritually and secular spirituality; however, such correlations

are often unnoticed (Williamson et. al 2013). The aliveness and sensitivity to the felt moving life of the body in somatic movement dance education (SMDE) brings yet more challenges in higher education, particularly the appreciation and academic articulation of a bodied spirituality that is a productive and active (alive) dimension of practice. Additionally, dance movement psychotherapy and Authentic Movement are key areas of academic study where both an internal and communal spirituality is valued and acknowledged (Pallaro 1999, 2007).

These practices continue the legacy of Jung in dance in higher education; but has the influence of Jungian spirituality in dance studies been fully appreciated and documented? The influence of Jungian spirituality has shaped many areas of dance practice: theatrical performance, SMDE, dance movement psychotherapy, and notably a number of lay dance forms, such as 5Rythms and Movement Medicine (the latter a subject in this issue).

Spirituality has intellectual and creative currency, yet is a term often used as if there is a shared agreement about what it means. The word occupies many interesting territories because it is associated with the ephemeral, yet its cultural and historic presence in dancing-writing earthed bodies forces the academic to enquire deeper into its nature, and acknowledge with greater clarity its presence, purpose and meaning in dance education. Spirituality is often understood to be a largely personal and internal experience. While internal spiritual processes are certainly central to academic and somatic inquiries into spirituality, spirituality also has sociohistorical, cultural, communal and external political dimensions that are no less important. The journal also aims to shift the often undefined presence of spirituality in dance studies from the liminal, elusive and ephemeral into more complex socio-historic grounded analysis, balancing the internal and external expressive dimensions of spirituality.

New directions The journal advances a new area of scholarship through methods that require both a challenging and inspiring of the academe. We are excited to see the many new directions research into dance,

Read on Amanda Williamson & Jill Hayes – Chichester University – Editors Dance, Movement & Spiritualities – ISSN: 20517068. This journal is part of the Performing Arts Collection.

References Amoda (2001), Moving into Ecstasy: An Urban Mystics Guide to Movement, Music and Meditation, London: Thorsons.

Darling Khan, Ya’Acov and Darling Khan, S. (2009), Movement Medicine: How to Awaken Dance, and Live Your Dreams, London: Hayhouse.

Hayes, J. (2013), Soul and Spirit in Dance Movement Psychotherapy: A Transpersonal Approach, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Holmes, R. (2008), The Age of Wonder, London: HarperPress.

O’ Hanlon, L. (2007), Dancing the Rainbow: Holistic Well-being Through Movement, Dublin: Mercier Press.

Pallaro, P. (ed.) (1999), Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. (ed.) (2007), Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved – A Collection of Essays, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Roth, G. (1997), Sweat Your Prayers – Movement as Spiritual Practice: The Five Rhythms of the Soul, New York, NY: Penguin Putnam.

Williamson, A., Batson, G., Whatley, S. and Weber, R. (eds) (forthcoming), Dance, Movement and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives, Bristol: Intellect.

Winton-Henry, C. (2009), Dance – The Sacred Art: The Joy of Movement as Spiritual Practice, Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths Publishing.

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movement and spiritualities will take over the coming years. We anticipate many innovative approaches and directions: scholars revisiting dance history through the lens of the spiritual in order to write innovative herstories and histories; the documentation of emerging spiritual forms from around the globe that might otherwise remain undocumented (academic, popular and vernacular); and new methods highlighting the enduring relationship between increased health and spiritual experience in contemporary times. The journal is indebted to the hard work and enduring commitment of the review board, Intellect and all our contributing authors: the growth and sustainability of this journal would be impossible without your collective insight, progressive and advanced scholarship, commitment to higher education and creative spirit. t

2014 journals

Fashion, Style & Popular Culture

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ISSN: 20500726 – 3 issues per volume Editors Joseph H. Hancock II – Drexel University jhh33@drexel.edu Vicki Karaminas – University of Technology Vicki.Karaminas@uts.edu.au

Clothing Cultures ISSN: 20500742 – 3 issues per volume Editors Jo Turney – Bath Spa University j.turney@bathspa.ac.uk Alex Franklin – University of the West of England Alex.Franklin@uwe.ac.uk

International Journal of Fashion Studies ISSN: 20517106 – 2 issues per volume Principal Editors Emanuela Mora – Università Cattolica di Milano emanuela.mora@unicatt.it Agnès Rocamora – London College of Fashion a.rocamora@fashion.arts.ac.uk Paolo Volonté – Politecnico di Milano paolo.volonte@polimi.it

IQ 2014 Journals Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion ISSN 2050070X – 3 issues per volume Principal Editor Andrew Reilly – University of Hawai`i, Manoa areilly@hawaii.edu

Journal of Urban Cultural Studies

Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art

ISSN 20509790 – 3 issues per volume Executive Editor Benjamin Fraser – The College of Charleston urbanculturalstudies@gmail.com

ISSN 20517041 – 3 issues per volume Principal Editor Paul Gladston – University of Nottingham Paul.Gladston@nottingham.ac.uk

2015 journals

Dance, Movement & Spiritualities

Journal of Illustration

ISSN 20517068 – 3 issues per volume Editor Amanda Williamson – University of Chichester sacredpublishing@live.com

ISSN 20520204 – 2 issues per volume Principal Editor Desdemona McCannon Manchester School of Art D.McCannon@mmu.ac.uk

Journal of Contemporary Painting ISSN: 20516695 – 2 issues per volume Editor Rebecca Fortnum – Middlesex University R.Fortnum@mdx.ac.uk

East Asian Journal of Popular Culture ISSN 20517084 – 3 issues per volume Editors Kate Taylor-Jones – Bangor University k.taylor@bangor.ac.uk Ann Heylen – National Taiwan Normal University annheylen@ntnu.edu.tw John Berra – Tsinghua University john.berra@gmail.com

Journal of Greek Media & Culture

Journal of Arts Writing by Students

ISSN 20523971 – 2 issues per volume Editor Lydia Papadimitriou – Liverpool John Moores University l.papadimitriou@ljmu.ac.uk

ISSN 20552823 – 2 issues per volume Editor Francesca Peschier – CCW Graduate School f.peschier@gmail.com

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2015 Journals

Metal Music Studies

Drama Therapy Review

Design, Business & Society

ISSN 20523998 – 3 issues per volume Editor Karl Spracklen – Leeds Metropolitan University K.Spracklen@leedsmet.ac.uk

ISSN: 20547668 – 2 issues per volume Editor Nisha Sajnani – Lesley University dtr@intellectbooks.com

ISSN 20552106 – 2 issues per volume Editor Gjoko Muratovski – Auckland University of Technology Gjoko.muratovski@aut.ac.nz

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