Left: Phil Lewis models his piece at Lost and Found, made from recycled pop bottles
Right: Elvina Rafi glues together her video tape dress at the workshop
June 2002
AGO Youth Council & Open-call participants
PROJECT COMPONENTS
Workshops
Fashion Show Event
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Lost and Found was a non-traditional fashion-show showcasing abstract wearable art. A five-week series of free workshops invited youth to use lost and found items to create fashion articles. Twenty-five youth from across Toronto gave life to waste items collected from Toronto dumpsters and the Toronto District School Board’s ArtsJunktion, with advice from artists, designers and local trendsetters, including Karma Clarke-Davis, stylists from Queen Street West’s Coupe Bizarre, designer Pat Mohan and others.
The final show Lost and Found had an interventionist approach, with models that interacted with the crowds, projected images and an original soundscape by DJ Engine, loosely based on “happenings” produced by Pop artists in the 1960s and Canada’s General Idea in the 70s. Each designer created an installation, or “store-front” to complement and house their model. Teen Council member Joe Law was the MC for the night.
The project advocated creative expression through recycled, cheap, everyday objects and the ability of youth to move beyond typical representations to create their own ideas about fashion.
Lost and Found took place on a Wednesday night in the AGO’s Walker Court to communicate the new AGO Free Wednesday evening policy to youth in the city.
ARTISTS
Karma Clarke-Davis
Stylists from Coupe Bizarre
44th Parallel
Pat Mohan
DJ Engine