Tenant Of Culture

Tenant of Culture, the critical art practice of Hendrickje Schimmel, explores and exposes hidden labour and production practices within the fashion industry, namely the socio-political concerns and history of single garments, the unsustainable ephemerality inherent to fashion trends, and the opaque lines of production that make the industry run. These ideas and debates – which can be extrapolated beyond the world of fashion as a broader critique of a society that champions mass production, consumerism and capitalism – are expressed through the repurposing and remediation of discarded clothes and shoes into stitched-together sculptures. The artworks’ production is influenced by set design, theatrical structures and special effects. Tenant of Culture views the production cycle in reverse, starting with the finished product and working backwards; interrogating the object as a meant of understanding its origins.