Ilona Trauttmansdorff



Catharsis


We hide deep fears in our minds, the fear of being alive, of not knowing where we are coming from or where we are going, or of not knowing if we are doing the right things.The fear of death, the biggest fear of the unknown, the definitive change, when we leave our loved ones, our safe place, when we leave what we have built, where our actions get lost, feel useless, meaningless.

The fear of losing identity.

The way to live peacefully and deal with that fear is to accept the changing possibilities of our lives, where every moment, with every choice,we make the next step developing the self-identity.
Aspects will be added, others unfolded, others will not continue to develop. It's a cycle of decay and rebirth towards the expression of the whole, of the self.
One has to fall apart to leave room for the
new one to grow.
It's to shed a skin,to lose a layer in the
development of something which is the same
but different,in a constant renewal where the
old & new become one,melting & folding
into each other.

Clothing or any other item of body
decoration can work as a mask,a shield,
a protecive layer to keep out the unwanted,
to define a somehow fix individuality that
we need to symbolize, strenghtening &
helping the soul through the
everchanging possibilities.
Or,in the loss of identity of a mask,to
transform that same fear we are hiding
from into life force.

We need to embrace the unknown as a
way of spiritual development,we need to
find the abandonment as a research for
the soul.
Catharsis as the purification from the
human passions through the extreme,
deep experiencing of those same
passions.
Destruction as a creative process,it's
the cycle of life & death,it's a lost identity
found again.
Dress as a material means to escape
materiality.

To awaken the interest into the value of
clothing as an object with a history & with
a meaning.
To see the imperfections of the handmade
as uniqueness,of time & love.
To be aware of the story of a decoration
item so that its importance can be translated
into our own identity.
To lose the boundaries of pre-constructed
clothing items, considering also the possibility
of unconventional shapes,
in a feeling of alienation & a need to detach
oneself from the taken for granted landscape
of normalized form.

The celebration of an everyday rite of
passage into a new self.