Camera Obscura

Immortality, Memory, and Obsession. ‘Camera Obscura’ depicts the extended life of a woman, whose slow memory loss is depicted through hand embroidered imagery of vintage cameras. Captivated by narrative, Rosie depicts this story using vintage garments and artifacts. The costume presents this characters breaking point. Her wavering functionality, to the point where she can no longer process the world around her, is explored through experimental embroidery and the use of three dimensional Goldwork details.

Born in the late 1600s this character, an unnamed women, is forced to watch the world change around her, family and friends dying as everything she understands slips away as her life continues, longer than it should. After centuries, her brain can no longer remember efficiently, causing her to forget everything dear to her. She forms an obsession with cameras, as they remain the only way of remembering the world around her.

This project uses several designs inspired by historical dress to present her slow decent as time passes around her. These designs range across decades including the 1800s, the Suffragette movement, the 1920s, and concluding in the 1990s. The camera motifs increase as her memory disintegrates and obsession grows. Cameras are so present in our history, easily forgotten yet so necessary, Rosie has always loved using a camera, the feeling of being in the moment, looking through the viewfinder and taking a shot. This gives us the ability to easily look back on every point of our lives. This collection required research into seven different decades, taking inspiration from the historical dress and societal events from the time to create a cohesive narrative.

Rosie originally explored cameras through illustrative methods. Breaking down their structure and capturing extensive detail. Then translating these marks into her embroidery, through a tambour method, stitching as if she was drawing with a pen. Enhancing this illustrative feel through embroidery techniques such as Goldwork, Blackwork, Canvaswork and Raised work to create detail and texture.

Working experimentally to create a sporadic feel, wanting to display the chaos experienced in this unnamed women's head, Rosie combines techniques and methods loosely. Using a mixture of metal threads to create highly textured surfaces, shining and reflecting light to create an overwhelming sense as your eyes don’t know where to focus. Echoing the lack of clarity experienced by this character, struggling to understand the technological advances in a century she was never meant to experience. As the threads unravel on the fabric and wires shapes collide, her mind disintegrates. Three dimensional elements using metal threads and sheer fabrics to contrast to the woollen garments, these are enhanced with vintage and antique artifacts which reference the different eras of this story.

Through her embroidered narrative Rosie wants to draw the viewer in and whisk them into a new world, intriguing them with a 1940s inspired costume. Creating details which evoke a feeling of truth, as if this was a real person whose story is unfolding through the designs in front of them. Rosie’s embroidery will capture detailed camera motifs which clutter the costume, colliding and hovering over the garments, representative of this unnamed character’s fracturing mind.