“This is one of several printed gowns made by Yin Lam as part of her contribution to Masquerade (1998), a project commissioned and staged by the London Printworks Trust (LPT), based in Brixton, south London. LPT is a community-based workshop which provides facilities to artists to work with print and fabric; it also has a dedicated outreach programme. Masquerade was an interactive exhibition which involved the setting up of a boutique in Brixton market. A number of artists, including Yin Lam, were commissioned to produce garments for the boutique. Passers-by were invited in to try on the clothes and have themselves photographed against specially-designed backdrops. The garments were often outrageous or provocative, designed not only to transform a sense of self, but also to break taboos and to question stereotypes.
Yin Lam chose to modify a number of surgical gowns (some green cloth, others white paper) by screenprinting them with images of naked bodies, male and female, black, white and Asian. These were produced as T-shirt sizes, knee-length gowns and full-length gowns. At the time she made these, she was already suffering from lupus, the disease which caused her early death, and had spent much time in hospital. Using the gowns was a way of addressing the changes she was experiencing in her own body, as well as offering others the opportunity to try living in someone else’s ‘skin’. They also suggest a frankness and openness about physical realities, and a deliberate rejection of conventional ideals of ‘the nude’ and the air-brushed perfection of the bodies which feature in advertising. Each of the bodies she chose to photograph and reproduce were those of professional models, but as well as those she described in the catalogue as ‘slim’ or ‘curvaceous’ or ‘athletic’, she also chose others who were overweight or had scars.”
Yin Lam’s work reminds me a lot of Jo Spence’s. Both deal with disease and body image in quite clever ways. Both works also deal with societal expectations and what is considered to be “beautiful” and, “normal”.
Yin Lam and Jo Spence seem to be deeply emotionally disturbed or discontent. Both were sick and had to deal with their realities and the fact that their bodies would be forever changed. Though the mediums are different, I see similarities in the use of medical visuals as well. Lam uses medical gowns and Spence uses her surgery scars.
Both of these garments are unfortunately in storage.
Samantha's RCA Process 