From 14 February to 16 June 2024, Museum JAN presents an exhibition of the work of fashion designer and artist Lisa Konno (1992). For this first solo exhibition, Konno is creating new work in which she combines Japanese porcelain with textiles. In this work, Konno reflects on ideals of beauty in both Japan and the Netherlands and asks the question: when is a quest for beauty a liberating form of self-expression, and when does it turn into a form of oppression? A confusing boundary explored in a video installation and a series of objects that stand somewhere in between garment and sculpture.
Lisa Konno
Lisa Konno is an outspoken, interdisciplinary maker within fashion design. Her work is colourful, innovative and distinctive. Cultural identity and craftsmanship are two important elements in her work. She tends to treat weighty topics in a light-hearted, humorous way. In recent years, she has often combined this with film. In the documentary/fashion film NOBU, BABA and HENK, fathers with a migration background are asked about their life stories while wearing a collection inspired by their identity. Konno experiments with a form of 'personalised design', which she uses to shed a different light on the concept of haute couture. Her films were shown by Dutch television stations VPRO and BNNVARA and at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and other international film festivals. In 2018 she won a Dutch Design Award. Her work is part of the permanent collections of Het Kunstmuseum, Textielmuseum and Centraal Museum Utrecht.
In the summer of 2022, Lisa Konno was a creative resident in Arita, Japan, where she learned to work with porcelain under the guidance of craft specialists. Konno, who is of Dutch / Japanese parentage, grew up and studied in the Netherlands. The research project in Arita was therefore something that involved not only the material aspect but also her own identity. Konno created in Artia the basis for a new phase in her work and a new collection that will be on display at her first solo exhibition at Museum JAN.
The Porcelain Body
Our perception of beauty may seem to be an autonomous choice. However, it is almost always influenced by culture, politics and time. Our relationship to the concept of beauty is oppressive as well as liberating. For this exhibition, Konno - in an intuitive way - plays with archetypal images of women from her two cultures such as the bride, the geisha, the prostitute and the housewife. In this process she uses symbols such as the apron, the hair bow and the world-famous Okame mask. In Japan, this mask symbolises the perfect housewife, but its original background is extremely conservative. She explores the clichés and gives them a new twist, searching for her own aesthetic. This has resulted in a video installation and a series of objects that hold the middle between garment and sculpture.