Visitors to Tate Exchange were greeted with the scene of a life-sized elephant made of recycled denim upon a steel frame. Masai Mara is the work of Liang Mingyu, a notable fashion designer based in Chongqing, China. The artist spent more than six months meticulously sewing the elephant and baby elephant, each seam and crease telling the hardships of wildlife ecology and the moving of life.
As a strong visual form, Masai Mara promotes reflection and action in the cause of environmental conservation. The mass-production and process of production for the denim jeans – as a global item of fashion – causes alarming environmental pollution and over-consumption. In 2015, Liang Mingyu visited the Masai Mara wildlife refuge in Africa. In response to that experience, whereby she learnt first-hand of the plight of wild animals, the artwork Masai Mara canbe seen to cross-over between her sustained practice of clothing design and her long-held concerns for conservation.
Composed through the techniques of the fashion designer, the texture of elephant skin is not only imitative, but also conveys the inheritance and realm of manual labour. The baby in the belly of the mother elephant, made of jeans and red rope, adds to the landscape of life and reproduction. Masai Mara, then, transcends the artist’s personal feelings and takes on the responsibility of observing and saving the living environment and fate of human beings and animals.
The presentation of Masai Mara on the Tate Exchange floor was brought into dialogue with creative opportunities to work with remaindered jeans material. Using a technique of mending or patching together materials, known as Boro, participants were able to work with students from Winchester School of Art to create a new artwork or garment. The activity stems from work produced at the School under the direction of Reem Alasadi.
Reem Alasadi is MA Coordinator of MA Textile Design and MA Fashion Design within Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton. Her creations always have their own unique signature to them, a personality of their own that seems to enhance the wearer. Her expertise in sustainable and ethical design is fundamental to future generations of fashion and textile students.
Liang Mingyu, a fashion designer based in Chongqing, China, is the winner of the 2018 China fashion lifetime achievement award, and in recent years has focused on the theme of ecological and environmental protection.