Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Material Listenings : Traveling in the Borderlands of Costume exploring Collective Bodies

Østergaard, Charlotte LU (2025) Embodied visions
Abstract
This keynote explores the borderlands of costume through the “corpo colectivo” (collective body) experiments (Lepecki 2017) initiated by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–1988) in the 1970s and Dutch textile artist Maria Blaisse’s (born 1944) ‘study of form and material possibilities’ (Marshall 2024, 144). These practices challenge conventional notions of costume offering ways to rethink costume beyond representation and toward
material-driven performance practices.
Through my own Ph.D. research, I have explored how a collective body can emerge as an entanglement of four performers and a costume — where costume is not merely an adornment but an active agent in the performative process. Engaging with practice as a mode of... (More)
This keynote explores the borderlands of costume through the “corpo colectivo” (collective body) experiments (Lepecki 2017) initiated by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–1988) in the 1970s and Dutch textile artist Maria Blaisse’s (born 1944) ‘study of form and material possibilities’ (Marshall 2024, 144). These practices challenge conventional notions of costume offering ways to rethink costume beyond representation and toward
material-driven performance practices.
Through my own Ph.D. research, I have explored how a collective body can emerge as an entanglement of four performers and a costume — where costume is not merely an adornment but an active agent in the performative process. Engaging with practice as a mode of speculation (Arlander 2017), I investigate how costume-materialities enable communal acts of listening, cultivating our listening cultures (Østergaard 2024, 119) The communal listenings extends beyond the performers to the audience, raising the question of how spectators can be invited to not only watch but also experience a sense of collective embodiment. If watching is primarily a visual act, how might we invite audiences into a more sensorial and immersive engagement with the collective body?
By exploring the ways in which costume-materialities co-shape both performers and audiences, this presentation considers how collective bodies emerge through attunement, movement, and material agency. In doing so, it proposes new ways of understanding costume as an active participant in performance-making and an enabler of shared experience. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
keywords
listenings, collective bodies, costume, material practices, Keynote
conference name
Embodied visions
conference location
Riga, Latvia
conference dates
2025-05-27 - 2025-05-28
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Adriaenssens, Sigrid. 2017. What I am thinking: form making artist Maria Blaisse. Formfindinglab. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Princeton University Arlander, Annette. 2012. Performing Landscape—Live and Mediated. In: Performance Research, 17(4), pp. 95–100. Arlander, Annette. 2017. Artistic Research as Speculative Pracice, Journal of Artistic Research. https://jar-online.net/en/artistic-research-speculative-practice Arlander, Annette. 2018. Performing Landscape for Years and Years. In: Borgdorff, H. & Peters, P. (eds.), Artistic Research: Charting a Field in Expansion. Stockholm University Press. Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the universe halfway – quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning, London: Duke university press. Best, Susan. 2011. Visualizing Feeling: Affect and the Feminine Avant-Garde. London: I.B. Tauris. Chapter 3: “Participation, Affect and the Body: Lygia Clark.” Clark, Lygia. 1994. Nostaliga of the body. October volume 69. 85–109. https://www.jstor.org/stable/778990?origin=crossref Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press. Hemmings, Jessica. 2005. “Playtime: Maria Blaisse”. Selvedge Magazine, Issue 7: Uniform. 48–51. Marshall, Susan. 2024. Insurbordinate Costume – inspiring performance. Routledge. Oliveros, Pauline. 2010/2022. Quantum Listening. Ignota Books. Oliveros, Pauline. 2015. The difference between hearing and listening, TED talks November 12, 2015.  Oliveros, Pauline. 2005. Deep Listening – a composer’s sound practice. iUniverse. Skærbæk, Eva. 2009. Leaving home? The ‘worlds’ of knowledge, love and power. In Bizzini, S.C. & Malabotta, M.R. (Eds) Teaching Subjectivity —Travling Selves of Feminist Pedagogy. 47–66. Østergaard, Charlotte. 2023. Listening Through and With Costume. Nordic Journal of Dance - Volume 14(1). 90–99. Østergaard, Charlotte. 2024a. Crafting Mateiral Bodies – exploring co-creative costume processes. Phd thesis. Lund University. Østergaard, Charlotte. 2024b. Listening with costume – a material-discursive practive. In (Eds) Marshall, Susan, Insurbordinate Costume – inspiring performance. Routledge. 119–128.
id
1f025791-be57-4906-b9c0-b51cb43ea48b
alternative location
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bhYr98M3gwj-3PnRWk0s7CzVdNghdNJs/view
date added to LUP
2026-03-14 16:52:32
date last changed
2026-03-18 08:39:12
@misc{1f025791-be57-4906-b9c0-b51cb43ea48b,
  abstract     = {{This keynote explores the borderlands of costume through the “corpo colectivo” (collective body) experiments (Lepecki 2017) initiated by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920–1988) in the 1970s and Dutch textile artist Maria Blaisse’s (born 1944) ‘study of form and material possibilities’ (Marshall 2024, 144). These practices challenge conventional notions of costume offering ways to rethink costume beyond representation and toward<br/>material-driven performance practices.<br/>Through my own Ph.D. research, I have explored how a collective body can emerge as an entanglement of four performers and a costume — where costume is not merely an adornment but an active agent in the performative process. Engaging with practice as a mode of speculation (Arlander 2017), I investigate how costume-materialities enable communal acts of listening, cultivating our listening cultures (Østergaard 2024, 119) The communal listenings extends beyond the performers to the audience, raising the question of how spectators can be invited to not only watch but also experience a sense of collective embodiment. If watching is primarily a visual act, how might we invite audiences into a more sensorial and immersive engagement with the collective body?<br/>By exploring the ways in which costume-materialities co-shape both performers and audiences, this presentation considers how collective bodies emerge through attunement, movement, and material agency. In doing so, it proposes new ways of understanding costume as an active participant in performance-making and an enabler of shared experience.}},
  author       = {{Østergaard, Charlotte}},
  keywords     = {{listenings; collective bodies; costume; material practices; Keynote}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  title        = {{Material Listenings : Traveling in the Borderlands of Costume exploring Collective Bodies}},
  url          = {{https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bhYr98M3gwj-3PnRWk0s7CzVdNghdNJs/view}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}