Painted Manifestations
Painted Series creates numerous performances and shows in collaboration with artists, museums and cultural initiatives, presenting their ever-growing collection of unique garments. Their work is featured in a multitude of publications. Additionally, Painted Series organizes workshops and talks about their work on request, sharing their knowledge and expertise.
Painted Series creates numerous performances and shows in collaboration with artists, museums and cultural initiatives, presenting their ever-growing collection of unique garments. Their work is featured in a multitude of publications. Additionally, Painted Series organizes workshops and talks about their work on request, sharing their knowledge and expertise.
2022 TABLEDRESS AMSTERDAM Coronation of an Orphan girl
With Tabledress Amsterdam (2021), ‘The Coronation of an Orphan Girl‘, Painted Series participated in the exhibition ‘Artists and the Golden Coach’ at the Amsterdam Museum.
Artists from different generations with various cultural backgrounds were commissioned to create artworks in which they reflect on the rituals that encompass the royal coach, the materiality and craftsmanship of the vehicle, and the colonial past and its impact on the present. Participating artists are: AiRich, Arahmaiani, Berend Strik, Bernard Akoi-Jackson, Brian Elstak, Danielle Hoogendoorn, Erwin Olaf, Iswanto Hartono, Naomie Pieter, Nelson Carrilho, Painted Series, Raul Balai, Sarah van Sonsbeeck, Serana Angelista, Sharelly Emanuelson and Sithabile Mlotshwa
Tabledress Amsterdam is inspirited by the orphan girls that used to live in the Burgerweeshuis, now the Amsterdam Museum. It is an ode to them and to the many anonymous hands that embroidered the cushions for the Golden Coach at the time. The orphan girl of 1898 steps out of the shadows and is crowned by hands of today, each of them leaving their own handwriting on the Tabledress Amsterdam.
A Tabledress by Painted Series, in collaboration with an inviting ‘house’, is a large tablecloth continuing into the bodice of a dress. This bodice is based on traditional, site specific dress, translated into the now. The robe will, as a new white canvas, be embroidered by local people in several gatherings on site; a lively dialogue of hands occurring through the embroidery. The people at the table connect and learn from each other. Crafts techniques are passed on and applied in a contemporary way.
The Tabledress was revealed and presented in a performative Table Speech Amsterdam, featuring the outcome of the workshops.
Artists from different generations with various cultural backgrounds were commissioned to create artworks in which they reflect on the rituals that encompass the royal coach, the materiality and craftsmanship of the vehicle, and the colonial past and its impact on the present. Participating artists are: AiRich, Arahmaiani, Berend Strik, Bernard Akoi-Jackson, Brian Elstak, Danielle Hoogendoorn, Erwin Olaf, Iswanto Hartono, Naomie Pieter, Nelson Carrilho, Painted Series, Raul Balai, Sarah van Sonsbeeck, Serana Angelista, Sharelly Emanuelson and Sithabile Mlotshwa
Tabledress Amsterdam is inspirited by the orphan girls that used to live in the Burgerweeshuis, now the Amsterdam Museum. It is an ode to them and to the many anonymous hands that embroidered the cushions for the Golden Coach at the time. The orphan girl of 1898 steps out of the shadows and is crowned by hands of today, each of them leaving their own handwriting on the Tabledress Amsterdam.
A Tabledress by Painted Series, in collaboration with an inviting ‘house’, is a large tablecloth continuing into the bodice of a dress. This bodice is based on traditional, site specific dress, translated into the now. The robe will, as a new white canvas, be embroidered by local people in several gatherings on site; a lively dialogue of hands occurring through the embroidery. The people at the table connect and learn from each other. Crafts techniques are passed on and applied in a contemporary way.
The Tabledress was revealed and presented in a performative Table Speech Amsterdam, featuring the outcome of the workshops.
thanks to MUSEUM DE PAVILJOENS
© 2008
Festival of Sadness 2018 onwards
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Whether you’re feeling sad because you miss somebody, your dream failed, you’ve got an unrequited love, or you simply have woken up at the wrong side of the bed: everyone feels sad once in a while.
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Since September 2018 the Festival of Sadness takes place upon invitation.
The heart of the Festival of Sadness is the Sadness Concert with singer Christina Fischer and dancer/performer Lucas Devroe. They proceed in a wondrous ceremony taking place in a specially designed traveling space, that can be constructed everywhere.
Margreet Sweerts guided both the performance and the design process of the Sadness Concert.
Painted Series’ fashion designer Saskia van Drimmelen, embroidery artist Desiree Hammen and architect Tim Prins collaborated to design, dress and create this movable space for sadness.
In collaboration with a host (your organisation, gallery, symposium) the festival can be given new shape. A side-program being created together, like The Handkerchief Embroidery Workshop; a tribute to the old fashioned white cotton handkerchief. Embroidering these by hand enables us to muse about moments of sadness and share almost forgotten gestures of comfort.
The Concert of Sadness and the Handkerchief Embroidery Workshop can also take place independently.
www.festivalofsadness.com
Whether you’re feeling sad because you miss somebody, your dream failed, you’ve got an unrequited love, or you simply have woken up at the wrong side of the bed: everyone feels sad once in a while.
We seem to forget that life is a rhythm of ascendance and bust. A rhythm that isn’t reflected in society. Whereas happiness is an emotion shared en masse, sadness seems an emotion kept secret, experienced at best individually and in isolation.
Where can you go to let go together? To have a good cry instead of a party? To make a common journey to the bottom of sadness? To feel that you’re not the only one?
The performance took place at the Sofia History Museum on 15 July 2016, and was the result of the workshopcalled “Future roots” in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The workshop was organized in partnership with The National Ethnographic museum at the Bulgarian Science Academy, in collaboration with local artisans and experts.
PAINTED SECRET ‘THE ONE’ 2011
Commissioned series of collection pieces for Audax Textielmusem, Tilburg.
a video by Painted and Toversex starring Natascha Dejong
Commissioned series of collection pieces for Audax Textielmusem, Tilburg.
A series of ‘shifts’ uniting machine knits and handmade Bulgarian needlelace in each garment
a video by Painted and Toversex starring Natascha Dejong
clothing: Painted Series, music by Toversex,
dance: Natascha Dejong,
camera: Mandy Pieper, directed by Pieter Wackers & Margreet Sweerts
edited by Pieter Wackers
Mended collection pieces found in the Museum Depot combined with first exploration of 'gemstone' under patches
In the 10th anniversity year of our collective brand Golden Joinery, Painted Series was invited to develop a workshop for Dutch Open Air Museum/ Openluchtmuseum Arnhem as part of the yeartheme ‘Choices define your Course!’ (‘Keuzes bepalen je Koers!’). Starting from researching repaired garments from previous centuries in the museum’s depot, we realized once more how clothes for long were considered a treasure and therefore well taken care of and if necessary mended with love.
Fascinated by the technique of underpatching, we developed a way of healing where a hole or tear in your garment turns into a gemstone by use of your own hands! In GOLDEN JOINERY we play with the notion of forming a fashionbrand of garments with golden scars -- the gemstone patches made throughout this year at the museum workshop will together symbolize a treasure.
We researched the principle of underpatching a tear in a garment. Similar techniques can be found in other cultures under the name Mola or Reverse Appliqué, often used in a decorative way.
For this workshop to be given by the crafts coaches of the Open Air Museum, we developed several elements;
- a research on the development and meaning of mending clothes from 1850 till present
- The rise of Visible Mending, well described in both word and image in the book MEND! by Kate Sekules
- An apron to be worn by the craftscoach, showing the different steps Van Gat Tot Schat / Hole To ‘gemstone’
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Golden Joinery
Started in 2013, Golden Joinery is a non-commercial, collaboratively developing clothing brand, initiated by Painted Series.
![Anti_Fashion by Li Edelkoort, Marseille 2016]()
![Anti_Fashion by Li Edelkoort, Marseille 2016]()
Started in 2013, Golden Joinery is a non-commercial, collaboratively developing clothing brand, initiated by Painted Series.
In playful workshops you are invited to repair a dear but broken garment with gold.
Touched by the Japanese technique Kintsugi, where broken porcelain is visibly healed with gold, Painted Series started to translate this gesture to fashion.
Kintsugi means golden joinery.
Celebrating the story of your garments with golden scars, a second layer is added, putting into question the monopoly of fashion labels.
www.goldenjoinery.com
O P E N I N G CLOTHES ‘Practicing Solidarity’ ArtEZ Fashion Professorship
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![Amsterdam, with Freya Zapata, Sanne Karssenberg, Saskia van Drimmelen, Margreet Sweerts]()
O P E N I N G CLOTHES is an adventure in opening your mind, opening up to each other, letting go of 'result thinking'. The project explores means and methods to turn practicing solidarity into something do-able that is challenging and joyful at the same time!
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O P E N I N G CLOTHES
Painted Series explores solidarity through ‘opening' already existing garments. Several groups of young people who have a bond (classmates, friends, bandmates) are invited to cut a piece from a loved garment to be exchanged and integrated into a piece of clothing owned by a friend.
A ‘fashion band-aid’ developed by Painted Series reconnects the cut-outs by ironing. Sharing and exchange creates something new, that is connected to the other. Both garment and identity of individual and group are ‘opened’– creating new bonds.
A simple gesture, designed and facilitated by fashion designers, executed by amateurs, lead to garments with Designer credibility.
O P E N I N G CLOTHES is an adventure in opening your mind, opening up to each other, letting go of 'result thinking'. The project explores means and methods to turn practicing solidarity into something do-able that is challenging and joyful at the same time!
Fashion is able to connect people, not only focusing on their individuality. Altering something (Make Do and Mend) can be used as a method to let (young) people experience that you can make a piece of clothing work again using your own hands.
Making something new from what you already have can be way more satisfying then an afternoon of shopping.
‘The last session of our research in a high school, with 14-year old kids, was mind-blowing and reassuring for what we try to evoke with our project. In just 2 hours, their garments
(they often didn’t realize they owned them before bringing them) transformed in unique pieces and expressed their bond. They were so exited about their ‘new’ clothes that they spontaneously decided to all wear them the next day to school.
They didn’t know each other that well before.’
OPENING
Drawing a line by turn, we will sketch various four-side shapes on paper together. From these sketches, one shape is chosen by consensus. We pin this shape as a paper template onto each other’s garment while wearing it. The placement is done directly on the body; looking at each other's piece, we help each other make a choice. We are each other's mirror. The shape is the same for everyone, the placement differs. We will all cut out this shape from our own garment.
A 'Future folklore' project always starts from the abundance that is locally present in terms of heritage, talent and techniques and what nature offers on site.
Upon invitation by Dima Stefanova, founder of Know How/Show How, for the Summer School in Sofia, Painted Series proposed to work with a group of students interested in fashion and crafts, to examine the patterns and symbolic meaning of ancient folklore clothing and translate them into a contemporary form language referring to these pieces.
Visiting the Etnographical Museum in Sofia, we were given the opportunity to take a close look at stunning work in antique pieces, before adopting this beauty in a contemporary ‘fashionable’ way. A Bulgarian handicraft technique was passed on by two masters in Keneta.
Participants are emerged into the design methods and body of thought developed by Painted Series; designing with each other during the making process, sharing knowledge, the renewed use of traditional handicraft techniques. Getting out of our personal ‘comfort zone’, to meet each other by and in the work and experience the pleasure of making in togetherness.
During the working process the participants conceive 'heritage' both on a personal and cultural level.
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The workshop led up to a performative way of revealing and unfolding the work grewn out of different hands on the closing day.
WE TREASURE
Lecture by Painted Series during the open program of the 2016 Know-How Show-How Summer school at the Theater hall of Sofia University.
Generously hosted by UNOCA at Scola di Arte, Painted Series did a 2 day workshop inviting people from the island Aruba and from The Netherlands to embroider the lap of Tabledress Aruba in togetherness.
“Table Dress” is a parable for Painted Series’ raison d'être – reinvigoration through collaboration. Painted Series is convinced that newness doesn’t necessarily equal advancement and there is an imperative to inventively preserve bygone skills and practices.
Their clothes are constructed so the making process is the actual design process that illustrates strong skills and good design, and this is where Painted and Salon/ share common ground. A kind of clothes far removed from standardization – personalized, individualized pieces as a rule, and that philosophy is applied to the ‘Tabledress’ to fit the ‘personality’ of the table.
Jocko Weyland on Painted Series, New York 2011
JANE by The Grey Attic ‘Vehicles of the Soul’ magazine Issue 6 / 2020
Bathwater
styled by Mary-Lou Berkulin, photographed by Annelie Bruijn with model Eeva Lioni at Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands
MEND! A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto by Kate Sekules (september 2020)
A hands-on manual and a history and celebration of clothes tending --
and its remarkable resurgence as art form, political statement and path to healing the planet
2018 Dissolving the Ego of Fashion by Daniëlle Bruggeman
Daniëlle Bruggeman’s publication focuses on reconsidering how we engage with each other and the material resources of the earth.
Due to its power of imagination, fashion can function as a tool to conceptualise and realise a more meaningful, inclusive -and above all more human- future society.
Fashion Change Connecting Cultures Editions, Milano 2018
Uit de Mode_collectie van het Centraal Museum Utrecht (2017)
