Cecilie Bahnsen presents her film installation “My Heart is Pounding,” photo exhibition by Takashi Homma, and sound installation by Okay Kaya on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar, September 29th at 4pm CET.
“I designed the collection very emotionally, feeling so much positivity. The brand is growing with the woman that wear it- It’s empowering to me knowing that people feel great putting on what we make. That’s the energy we’ve had in the studio and I think it really shines through in the dresses. The collection is about celebrating our love for the craft and the collection.
I didn’t want to do anything too complicated this season. It was about the beauty of the everyday. I’ve been doing a lot of cyanotype printing lately, an early Victorian style of photography, putting flowers on to paper with chemicals brushed on. You expose it to the sun and afterwards, all you see is the negative space of the flower – I like this idea that it’s just the silhouette and everything is tonal. That inspired the fabrics; it’s about how the negative space creates the textures.” - Cecilie Bahnsen
For her SS22 Paris Fashion Week presentation, Cecilie Bahnsen collaborates with two artists: the Norwegian-born Berlin based singer Kaya Wilkins, who performs under the name Okay Kaya, and the Japanese photographer Takashi Homma. Kaya, known for the wisdom and power in the depth of her emotions performs three tracks, filmed in an abandoned airport outside of Copenhagen – one singer alone in the vast space symbolising the aloneness of recent times. The concrete area is also the setting for the collection film, no runway - just models filmed up close as portraiture.
Cecilie has also invited Takeshi Homma to photograph his interpretation of the collection with models on the streets of Tokyo. The three elements – the show film, Kaya’s performance, Takashi’s photography – come together at an an exhibition during Paris Fashion Week. On the ground floor, visitors will encounter a sound installation of Kaya’s performance alongside the show film. The lush sound comes alive through the handcrafted Audiovector speakers. Upstairs on the first floor, they meet Homma’s Tokyo photos. The two collaborating artists can be seen to reflect the two sides of Cecilie’s sensibility and creative spirit: the architectural, detached world of Takashi Homma versus the off-kilter dreamy romance of K aya Wilkins. This project is created in collaboration with MOON.
The show film captures Cecilie Bahnsen’s SS22 collection in a highly personal manner, from up close and afar on a monumental industrial area at the harbour, and remains steadfastly fixed on the characters, the human beings breathing and with pounding hearts. Even though the focus is on the collection we allow the audience into the cast members dreams and anxieties. By doing so the project is in relation to painted portraiture extending back to Francisco de Goya as well as Andy Warhol’s real-time film portraits and Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s film, Zidane, a 21st century portrait (2006.
If you ask Cecilie Bahnsen, Takashi Homma is one of the most inspiring living photographers. After working in London with portraits, documentary and fashion photography for some of the most exciting publications in the 1990s, he later began to focus on other topics. Homma has since then done books and exhibitions with images of contemporary architecture, highways, covered cars, hidden rooftop gardens, desolate chain restaurants, parking lots, teenagers, children at play, objects, snow- capped mountains and seas. Mainly in Tokyo but also with images from his trips around the world. Cecilie has a longtime obsession with Takashi’s unique observations. Therefore we invite Homma to reimagine Cecilie Bahnsen’s Spring/Summer collection, creating a total new, personal take on Cecilie’s world.
For both Kaya Wilkins and Cecilie Bahnsen, creativity is therapy. While Cecilie creates an ever-evolving of beautiful silhouettes, Kaya has built a small diorama of minimal bedroom pop with lyrics about her mental health, traumas, and desires. For SS22 she creates a unique performance and sound installation that take the audience on an intimate journey of self-reflection through frank disclosures about her life. Again, revealing an urge to challenge and expand Cecilie Bahnsen’s universe.
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