@misc{142cdeab-3c96-4ab0-94f9-a5ce17183982,
  abstract     = {{This paper draws on Karen Barad’s agential realism - which understands agency as<br/>relational rather than individually possessed (2007) - to examine how costumes can<br/>act as active hosts capable of creating temporary, sensorial, and co-constituted<br/>collectives; tactile agents that co-create relational bodies. Central to this approach<br/>is embracing the differences bodies bring - their varied orientations, histories, and<br/>capacities - which shape the dynamics and outcomes of each encounter and each<br/>temporary community.<br/>The paper engages with the Neo-Concrete movement in Brazil, particularly the<br/>work of Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark. In Oiticica’s Parangolés (1964-1968), the<br/>wearer becomes both medium and participant, activating the work through<br/>lived, mobile engagement. Clark’s O Eu e o Tu (1967) requires cooperative<br/>bodily negotiation, dissolving individual boundaries and generating a shared<br/>proprioceptive feld. These practices illustrate how costume can function as an<br/>interface for relational attunement and collective experience.<br/>Building on these legacies, the paper turns to the author’s own costume-based<br/>practices, where participation becomes entwined with care - an entanglement<br/>informed by Sara Ahmed’s orientation toward the unknown (2006) and<br/>Eva Skærbæk’s notion of care as relational practice (2009). Designing and<br/>workshopping unfold as inseparable processes, as costume only emerges through<br/>the entanglement of human and non-human agencies. This requires material and<br/>relational listening(s), attuning to subtle negotiations between bodies, materials, and<br/>contexts.<br/>Hosting becomes an essential skill; an ongoing negotiation between giving space<br/>and taking responsibility. Creating community through design is understood as ‘a<br/>form of hospitality in which sharing becomes both an ethical and poetic gesture’<br/>(Østergaard 2025). Costume as a relational host enables temporary polyphonic<br/>communities, where human and non-human voices resonate without collapsing into<br/>sameness. Through co-movement and mutual attunement, costume offers a way to<br/>imagine and enact more ethical, responsive, and relational futures.}},
  author       = {{Østergaard, Charlotte}},
  keywords     = {{costume research; community; artistic research; ethics}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{09}},
  title        = {{COSTUME as COMMUNITY}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}