Distortion in Creativity

Interested in customs of clothing, DATTA has explored new forms of traditional clothes through research using archive materials and discussions with people including experts. His research, discussions and works are compiled in his paper media ZINE in units of the respective regional project. It is well known that the origin of the words “textile” and “text” is Latin “texere” which means to weave/interweave. Datta is doing editing work with both threads and words for clothes. The title of his project in Aomori was VOLUME 3 ISSUE 2, 2021. In his ZINE of the concept of the year 2021, volume 3, no. 2, what he researched, the materials and his works that are based on them are included. The content of each issue is of course different, but being in the same format while probing into the cultural diversity makes it look like exploring clothes, which is the common culture for all humankind.

In the Aomori project, the clothes worn after the war but were kept in the closets were donated. The memories and episodes related to these clothes are also collected to be part of “Clothing Drive,” in which the clothes themselves, their data and the episodes are archived in his own way. Referring to various materials, Datta wanted to focus on clothes worn after the war, especially in the suburbs. Among them, he was interested in women wearing “kakumaki,” the outfit for cold weather, which were photographed by photographer KUDO Shoichi(*1). For Datta, it looked similar to “hijab” worn by Islam women. In this way, the same clothes look different according to who sees them or the difference in awareness of religious and political backgrounds. When interfered by people, external elements continue to be generated for clothes. The “pattern cutting” for Datta probably meant taking in external elements for the levels of form of clothing and to be the method to try to see if it is possible to symbolize them.

Usually, clothes are made to fit the wearer’s body. In Datta’s case, however, experimental pattern cutting and sewing create distortions, and by changing the form of traditional clothes, which is fixed, it is aimed to change the relationship between the wearer and the clothes. For oppressed people, it might provide a chance for liberation. When cutting, “pattern manuscripts” are used. Drawings are repeatedly created to explore possibilities in form with different elements. With these manuscripts, Datta repeats editing of the forms by hand. In Aomori, many collected items were kimono, which is constructed with straight lines, different from the Western clothes. While paying attention to shapes commonly seen in a certain region (e.g., tassel or knots), Datta creates unique distorted forms and it seems there emerge patterns that are connected at the fundamental level in each clothes.

The distortion in this project is distortion through “translation”, and it means “translating” clothes from different cultures in the language of the history of Western clothing, and also “translation” from Japanese into English when the episodes were collected for his “Clothing Drive.” The collected episodes were very interesting in terms of local communities after the war, family, tradition and gender, and individual stories. Implemented as a remote program, our communications were limited to online, but Datta positively and aggressively turned the distortion generated in this situation into his creativity.

*1 1929—2014. Worked for To-o Nippo newspaper. Photographed Aomori, its local people and scenery in Showa 30s period (1955—1964). In recent years, his negative films were discovered which rated him high.

Photo: OYAMADA Kuniya
Text by KEINO Yuka, Curator of Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori Public University
Translated by NISHIZAWA Miki