Mutant Dancer, 2023
Shezad Dawood × Ahluwalia
Mutant Dancer 1 and Mutant Dancer 2, 2023. Costume sculpture designed by Ahluwalia for Shezad Dawood's Night in the Garden of Love.
Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.
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Installation view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © We Document Art.
Installation view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © Lola Pertsowsky.
Two costume sculptures Mutant Dancer 1 and Mutant Dancer 2 are designed by London-based fashion label Ahluwalia, integrating fabrics from Dawood's textile archive. These build on their previous collaborations focused on a mutual interest in repurposing and upcycling vintage textiles, and integrating costume into contemporary dance. The costumes are for the Mutant, a character from the novella, who appears in the Night in the Garden of Love (VR) and in real life at regular intervals throughout the exhibition: Dawood has created a choreography with Brussels-based dancer Wan-Lun Yu for this character. During Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef at WIELS, Brussels, she will perform on several Sundays, offering a real-life counterpart to the digital, post-human mutant.
Installation view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © Lola Pertsowsky.
Installation view, Night in the Garden of Love, Inspired by & featuring Yusef Lateef, WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Photography © Lola Pertsowsky.