Charlotte’s Curatorial Statement For A(r)mour: The Defiant Dress

This statement is displayed prominently in the lobby of the theatre.

Women’s fashion is a lens through which we can challenge the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between the ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ self. In A(r)mour: The Defiant Dress I contest the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience; I celebrate sartorialists who do not follow logical criteria — those who seek subjective associations and formal parallels, which incite the viewer to make new personal associations.

The works of A(r)mour: The Defiant Dress reveal personal narratives that open a unique poetic vein. Multilayered personalities arise from the fragility and instability of the seemingly fragile gossamers with which we wrap the feminine psyche. By emphasizing aesthetics, these works highlight masculine supremacist vulnerabilities as well as the liberationist soul of the female; their dramatic form proffering resistance against the logic of the sexist system.

In making the selections I have, I fetishize the defiance of woman living in an atmosphere of middleclass mentality in which recognition plays an important role. Created in the omnipresent lingering of a ‘man’s world,’ these concealing, protecting “couverture des femmes;” these disguises breaks the tradition of compliance with a creative emphatic. This personal affront to tradition is important as an act of meditation; viewers may undergo transubstantiation.

These collected, altered and personal works are being confronted as aesthetically resilient, thematically interrelated material for memory and projection. The possible seems true and the truth exists, but it has many faces. 

Welcome and enjoy.

Charlotte Mercer

The Letters

The set in the theatre where  A(r)mour: The Defiant Dress is staged is exhibited with a letter Charlotte, the curator of the show, has received telling the backstory of each dress and written by the dress' owner(s) or caretaker(s).

The Defiant Dress

This set piece is the plot driver; it's an homage to Reena Virk, a B.C. teenager murdered by her peers. The front bears words the creator wished had been in Reena's head; the back bears the cigarette burns and handprints of the two young people who murdered her.

I, Charlotte Mercer, the artist/curator of this exhibition made this dress. It did not come from someone else.

I’ve had a great rich life with loving parents. I grew up in Langley and I’ve never had a crisis or faced a daunting challenge. My life has been blessed. I’ve never taken for granted my good fortune in being born in Canada and into a family that has never experienced hunger or fear. We weren’t rich but we never wanted for anything.

When I started to put this show together, I wished I’d celebrated some proud accomplishment by making or buying a brilliant dress. But I didn’t. Yet I wanted to put something into the show. Here’s what happened.

One of my favourite heroines in life ever, was Jeanne d’Arc and so she was my first thought but she doesn’t fit into my thesis.  But when I thought of her, I often picture her wearing armour and when I thought of armour, I don’t know why but for some reason I said to myself; “I wish Reena Virk had had some armour.”

I had my idea. I’d make her the armour she never and needed. It’d be my tribute to her. No child should be murdered, especially at the hands of other kids she thought were friends. My horror and sorrow over her story as it played out in the press made me love her.

It’s tree-shaped because she was murdered on a wild beach under a wooden pier. It's the colour and texture of bone to make us think of her grievous injuries. I read things and heard things on TV kids said about her… behind her back; things said that destroyed her armour of self-respect.  And I thought of the words that we should have seen emanating from her face.

Rest in peace Reena. I wish you eternal paradise.

The Chopstick Dress

The bodice of this set piece contains fortunes that visitors can pull out and read. Each is bilingual and an actual Chinese saying.

尊敬的Charlotte

可帮助我写这封信。 我的女儿、尼, 是我丈夫的自豪和喜悦。 “爱他, 她的烧伤非常明亮如烟花-光明的, 永久的蜡烛我的爱似乎是弱势的他。

当 Daphne 娶了一位西方人, 我丈夫的伤害和愤怒。 他拒绝了所有的邀请到他们家, 我就不可能有我的女儿和她的丈夫在我们的主页。 每个人都在我们的家庭是令人痛心的。

在2008年 Daphne 邀请我们转到新的一年的晚会。 我丈夫说没有, 但我所说的 “是”。 他疯了, 但我想因为 Daphne 已怀孕。

我做的衣服, 因为它是充满了良好的财运在新的一年今天晚上和的传统, 我们的文化。 当我来到楼下的去和他看到的服装。 他问我为什么我穿的一身打扮, 我告诉我的丈夫我们的孙子会没有中国人写小说她所有的生活-从出生之前。 这样他就来了我和家庭的矛盾。

您的朋友王梅

Dear Charlotte,

I get help writing this letter. My daughter, Daphne, is my husband’s pride and joy. The love he has for her burns very bright like fireworks — so bright that the perpetual candle of my love seems weak to him.

When Daphne married a Western man, my husband was hurt and angry. He refused all invitations to their house and I could not have my daughter and her husband in our home. Everybody in our family was sad.

In 2008, Daphne invited us to go to New Year’s Evening party. My husband said no but I said yes. He was mad, but I wanted to go because Daphne was having a baby.

I made the dress because it was full of good fortunes for the New Year Evening and in the tradition of our culture. And when I came downstairs to go and he saw the dress he asked me why I wore that dress and I told my husband our grandchild will go without Chinese storyteller all her life — from before birth. So he came with me and the family feud was over.

Your friend  Mei Wong

The Wheat Dress

Dear Charlotte,

Thank you very much for your telephone call. I am still amazed that you found out about Grandma Torgey’s wedding dress. (By the way, her last name is spelt Torguerson. There’s a “U” in it that I’d forgotten about.) Here’s the story written down as per your request.

Granny Torgey was born in Norway. She immigrated to Minnesota with her parents when she was a toddler and that’s where she met Harry, who was from Winnipeg, at a state fair. He was working the fair circuit selling some kind of farming equipment. They met, I think, in 1933. This was during the depression, remember.

The story of Granny Torgey’s dress is folklore in our family. (Some of my dates or dollar amounts may be wrong.) All I know is that they got married in the middle of the worst year of Granny Torgey’s life.

When they settled, wheat had been something like $29 a bushel but the year they met it was getting around $2 a bushel. By the time Harry came down to marry Granny, their wheat was worth nothing.

The year they married they had the worst dust storm the US had ever had. Granny’s parents had to abandon their farm — they had no choice. They loaded all they could onto a truck to head west and left right after the wedding, so there was plenty of room in the house for dancing.

And boy did people dance, Charlotte. That’s what everyone remembers — the best party of the depression. People were fed up with being unhappy and worrying, so they let loose at the party. And Granny Torgey was the star, and not because she was the bride, but because her wedding dress— all made of wheat — was the perfect “if God hands you lemons, make lemonade” antidote to their feeling of hopelessness.

So was her wedding cake, by the way. It was made of bread, but iced like a cake.

I loved Granny Torgey and her wedding dress has always been one reason why.

Regards,

Dorrie Grant