A Chilean artist is creating outlandish, eye-catching garments specifically to ensure that they won’t be ignored. Ingrato is the alter ego of Sebastián Plaza Kutzbach, a creative producer at The University of Chile, who uses traditional textile processes to make garments that are designed to attract attention. Kutzbach tells The Creators Project why he invented the alter ego and what he’s trying to do with it: “The project was born because of the need to show the artisan’s work that exists in my country and its devalued state because of the textile industry. Everything that I display as ‘Ingrato’ is handmade.”
Chile has a rich history of textile art. The Mapuche, for example, are an indigenous Chilean culture that are known for traditional garments, which were once so highly valued that one of their ponchos could be traded for multiple horses. Kutzbach is concerned that Chilean garments now have to compete with a globalized textile industry that’s decreasing their worth in comparison to cheaper, factory-made garments. Kutzbach’s intention is to highlight the artistry behind Chilean textiles, especially their handmade qualities, and to illustrate their creative possibilities. “The concept seeks to intervene the human body in different ways,” says Kutzbach. And considering that Ingrato translates to “ungrateful,” it seems that one intervention that Kutzback is determined to achieve is an increase in appreciation for the skilled labor involved with textile production.
Photo: Mairo Arde.
Nice danglies on that person!
And, of course, an interesting political/economic take on art!
Very nice danglies indeed!
I do hope this is effective, so many arts are disappearing anymore, and there are more and more people who simply don’t understand or appreciate hand crafted items, nor do they want to pay for them.
Agreed. I can almost understand it for rapidly growing kids or for garments that would be worn during manual labor, but I have cheap T-shirts that are 20 years old. I’ve recently donated a whole bunch of used clothes because over time I slowly acquire new things and yet as slow as I acquire them my old clothes wear out even more slowly. People like me who spend most of their time in schools and offices and buses and homes really should be sporting a much greater percentage of hand-crafted clothing.
And something I forgot to say earlier: aside from the clothing, which was fantastic, and the mountains, which were breathtaking, there was something else that struck me about the video. The eyes of the model (who, I think, was Kutzbach?) really actually looked bigger relative to the face than human eyes typically are. The make-up was done in such a way as to create anime-eyes, without actually altering the eyes of the model at all. I don’t know how that works or if it would work on the minds of people unfamiliar with anime styles, but it sure worked on me.