Imagination triggers

The more I create and am guided in my course assessments to start with a reference point of collated images, textures and words that inspire and help to convey what I will be working towards... the more I realise the value in this curating process. It is something that I have done sub-consciously my whole life: picking up rocks and bits of rope that have interesting shapes/colours/patterns, tearing pictures from magazines, scribbling down quotes/lyrics/phrases/something a friend has said, keeping scraps of fabric. My walls are covered  and my cupboards bursting with these collections, but they are all a part of my life's inspiration board. They all have memories attached: dreams, ideas, scents, emotions.

And when I return to them, as I do to my collages and mood boards that I create for my course assessments, I am transported to a place where my imagination is guided by the boundaries of the subject yet has the freedom to explore myriad directions. These collections of mine have no monetary value though to me they are priceless. They are my trigger, kept close as I never know when my imagination will fire. 

A wall in my studio.

  Piecing together my inspiration collage for my wearable art garment. The theme is "Dreams and Nightmares". My inspiration is the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh on April 24, 2013.

This last image reminds me of a quote I read recently, although I did not record the author:
"Call me old fashioned, but I would prefer people did not die while making my clothes".

These images make me feel sick, but what I feel is nothing on the reality of the nightmare behind the fashion industry, where people are dying or trapped in a lifetime of slavery, being paid so little as to entrap them forever.

My goal is to create a piece of wearable art that will mark the year anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse, and encourage people to initiate conversations about where their purchases come from.

♥ Yasmin