Launched in 2022, Intermix Residency is powered by ATHR Gallery. A unique opportunity for the thirteen invited artists to explore the synergies between art and fashion. Studio Marant was commissioned to build a workshop and masterclass program with experts of the design, art and fashion fields.
The Intermix Residency in Riyadh is more than just a typical residency program for visual artists and fashion designers. It is a platform that encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration and explores various approaches to creativity.
One of the key pillars of the program is the inclusion of non-designers in design projects. This concept highlights the importance of diversity and interdisciplinary thinking, which can lead to innovative and unexpected outcomes.
Through this approach, the residency aims to create a space where participants can experiment, take risks, and push the boundaries of their respective fields. By bringing together artists and designers from different backgrounds,
the Intermix Residency fosters a dynamic and stimulating environment where new ideas can flourish.
At the heart of the Intermix Residency program is a focus on design innovation and the end-user experience. Throughout the three-month residency, participants are encouraged to ask critical questions about how their designs will be received and interacted with by the end-user, and to explore new and innovative ways of engaging with their audience.
Studio Marant set the residency program by including workshops and talks to inspire the residents and follow the key objectives. One of them included to intervention of French designer Wendy Andreu during a weeks exchange in Riyadh.
━ BODIES AND LANDSCAPES by Tara Al-Dughaither
A little over three decades ago, the seminal essay Cyborg Manifesto written by scholar Donna Haraway was published for the first time, challenging and expanding on post-human studies with an extensive analytical rejection of rigid separations between human, non-human and machine. Haraway’s philosophy puts forward a narrative of coalition, solidarity, affinity and care across human and non-human ways of being within the context of a post-capitalist world.
That our environment, its natural resources and the social and economic structures that result from its condition are interrelational has never been as evident and so widely acknowledged as in the past few years. With Harraway’s essay as a point of departure and for the first three-month interdisciplinary arts residency at JAX Diriyah,
Riyadh; a highly transforming context lends itself to questions around settling the body within shifting landscapes, be it digital, natural, urban, social…etc.
Digging deeper, Bodies as Landscapes draws its questions from the origins and rituals of natural sanctuaries or ‘Al Hima’ within the area and region. What does it mean for our species to approach, adapt, examine, survive and interact with progressively complex industries and digital worlds? How can artists create their own sanctuaries and share resources within these shifting landscapes?
This catalog showcases the experimental studies of 13 residents working between fashion, visual and textile arts. The works result from ontological, philosophical as well as practical exploration of tensions within aesthetic production in a globally shifting arts discourse towards harmony and cohesion. Each work mediates a dialogue between the body as a creative medium and its environment; examining various modes of making,
knowing and perception within the post human world that is so well articulated by Harraway.
The program was designed to support artists with skill based and discursive exercises centered around communality, self-direction and encounters with mentors within the fields of urbanism, landscape architecture, conceptual and visual art, film, fashion, traditional crafts, photography, technology and food.
By approaching artists’ practices as a terrain of valuable resources in dialogue with real and imagined worlds, we are able to position more delicate, intimate and slower rituals of making where the body acts as a creative medium or resource capable of expanding on ecological modes of creation in increasingly variable circumstances. Bodies as Landscapes is a self-reflective framework of thinking that is concurrently questioned through the artist residents, program activations, collaborations and future iterations.
━ FROM FIBER TO FUTUR a workshop by Wendy Andreu
The “From fibers to the future” workshop was a unique opportunity for the Intermix residents to explore the possibilities of using natural fibers to create tangible design and art proposals. The workshop focused specifically on palm trees, which have a long history of usage in weaving, construction, and utilitarian objects.
Residents were provided with palm tree materials in all forms, including leaves, rope, and fiber. They were challenged to design three different typologies using these vegetal fibers: surfaces, volumes, and connection systems. The goal was for each participant to experiment in a free and generous way, exploring the material’s unique properties before starting to create.
Throughout the week-long program, participants engaged in solo experimentation, group conversations, and one-on-one moments with Wendy. The focus was not just on creating physical objects but on thinking about each individual’s artistic practice.
At the end of the workshop, each artist presented their unique creations, showcasing the endless possibilities of using palm tree fibers in design and art. The workshop provided a space for artists and designers to think deeply about materials and to push the boundaries of what is possible with natural resources.
Overall, the “From fibers to the future” workshop was an inspiring and thought-provoking experience that challenged participants to think creatively about their art and design practices while also promoting sustainability and the use of local resources.
I work across performance, fashion, video and installation. My work, which draws on my personal experiences, explores questions around identity and the relationship between one’s self and its surroundings, the complexity of human interactions and emotions. In my practice, I create on-site interpretations of narratives, using textile, sound and flow. Fashion has been one of the most constant forms of expression, that is liberating to experiment with. I am – in most cases- my own fashion designer / stylist as well as producing selected items for my own brand.
A multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin, Germany. Working across sculpture, video, textile and fashion, my practice draws upon diaspora perspectives for re-contextualizing material culture within the tangling nexus of hyper-globalization. Within my practice, I experiment with craftsmanship, especially surrounding textiles, reimagining the material’s signifying meaning. In my works, I explore fashion’s connotation on the human body as opposed to its presence in a spatial context without the human body. In this way, I hope to provoke the viewers’ perspective on fashion and labor
From my atelier in Cordoba Argentina, I create my collections inspired by the context that surrounds me, I take photos in the street, I buy materials near my house and I reuse textiles from workshops that make massively. Each design decision is conscientious, it is emotional, it is my way of repeating my present, I seek my identity, what is life for me? Who I am ? What stories can I tell? Textile is part of my life. I tell stories. I am inspired by the street and people, I like to observe…
My work highlights the ambiguous approach of spirituality with technology delving into a broad set of cosmologies, activating modes of communal interconnectivity, social relations, and identity. My media ranges from performances to interactive websites; from hand-made quilts to neon installations – In my work I use quilting and patchwork techniques as they can open a discourse with our current relationship with technology. In these quilts I am using special materials which are sustainable and obstruct electromagnetic fields of wifi and cell phones so these artworks facilitate a temporary technological detox and purification.
Learning for me has always been a self-led experience throughout my personal life and professional career, as a photographer & director, in fashion & documentary, landscapes, & people. In addition to experimenting with costume design and making in films and series of photos. I find myself re-envisioning subjects, experiences and memories as a figurative response, influenced by own life experiences. With the physical world around me, being a point of reference – considering the limited resources I grew up with (such as the ability to travel abroad), I document various surrounding subjects to generate a shared experience of community to a wider audience
Our shared preoccupation for the state of the globe propels us to find innovative solutions in the most uncommon of places. An elemental aspect of our survival success relates to synergetic interspecies relationships, such as the relationship between human and sheep, a steady feat of mutualistic living in search of greener pastures. As a fiber artist, my works are textile-based. Through the process of directly colliding with the sentient provider of the raw material, be it plant or animal, collaborations are formed equating into objects of use & cultural significance and more importantly, a holistic understanding of processes in nature.
My work for the past 5 years has contained a revealing aspect of history that has lefzt a profound impact on contemporary culture and design practice. Be it traditional design patterns, conventional stitching, or re-inventing an old fabric, my heart finds a way to return to the hidden variables of history and culture. In my diverse and varied approaches to developing art including embroidery, weaving, knitting, patchwork, and manipulation. In my most recent works, I explored themes of nature and the human body and developed artworks influenced by intricate cellular structures, trypophobia, and mesmerizing process of metamorphosis in a butterfly. The exquisitely crafted art pieces in these collections featured silk, organza, cotton, and jute
Ever since I was a child, I wanted to draw, create and own the latest gadget. a passion for Haute Couture, and was rooted in my family tradition of making custom clothing. Ever since, I have immersed myself into learning every technique and craft related to fashion to be able to evolve and innovate, and incorporate them in my designs. I have always thought of fashion design as an ever-evolving field with its roots in art, and its stems and branches in research and technological innovation. With design and embroidery as my core competencies, I have a deep understanding of textiles, especially indigenous textiles from India and Saudi Arabia. I have an avid interest in textile manipulation and sustainable fashion
As a multidisciplinary artist and designer, I enjoy bridging different media and materials to create new formal explorations. I incorporate light and time-based media to touch on the boundaries of dualities and the spaces in between; such as public and private space, comfort and discomfort, nostalgia and memory. My practice frames landscapes, whether internal or external, through fragmentation, fluidity and seriality. I believe this residency aligns with certain explorations I have begun, in regards to mixing photography with textile
The city is becoming our default habitat. Whereas cities have tremendous potential to promote social cohesiveness and sustainability, urbanization and the built environment are often misrepresented or misunderstood. This quest to understand how cities work, how social relations are cast in space, has been the driving force behind my work. My practice reflects my interdisciplinary background architecture, heritage and urban sociology. The large scale tapestry format, as well as expanding the boundaries of spatial representation, particularly at an urban level, have been constant interests in my practice.
I am multidisciplinary artist based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. With a Graphic design and digital media degree, I discovered my interest in filmmaking and video art. I am also Interested in conceptual art, installation, embroidery, sewing and printing. And currently developing techniques to use sewing on papyrus paper and I believe this residency will help me develop and learn variety of techniques in using textile. I am keen to know more about this field and very interested to see where it may take me. Also, I have a couple of research that am sure I will be able to build and finish during the intermix residency program being a part of many other enthusiastic artists that I can flourish aside with.
During my last year at University, I found myself slowly drifting away from Graphic Design, it didn’t mean that I would no longer practice it, I just wanted to get into something else, and that led me into doing my graduation project “Black Profile” which was mainly a lot of historical research and photography, and I also experimented with screen printing and cyanotype. I use photography to explore my identity, diversity and representation in the Arab Region, and the human experience. I do a lot of research to reach the final goal of my any project I start, so now I enjoy researching topics like African Art History, and colonialism.
My practice focuses on drawing, print and installation to be a base from which my interests are directed to environmental practices and the surrounding accumulations in terms of form and execution. My work is focused on the durational aspect and the way humans deal with time and its impact on the environment, in general, and humankind in particular.
I find in natural sources and elements a solid base through which I can explore issues such as forest fires, farmers’ migration, and the way humankind coexists with basic life, are all key issues that go beyond the present and raise questions about the future of humankind
