Columbus-based artists lead Todd Oldham–inspired Super Sunday

Andrea Oh
Thu, 08 Mar 2018 06:23:31 +0000
Campus, News, arts, Dora Rodriguez, local art, Madeline Conway, Super Sunday, Tod Oldham, wexner center, wexner center for the arts

The Wexner Center for the Arts “Super Sunday” will feature a hands-on art event focusing on a Todd Oldham-style textile installation for people to interact with. Credit: Courtesy of Heather Taylor

An interactive Super Sunday event will allow participants to explore aspects of Todd Oldham’s work at the Wexner Center for the Arts this weekend.

Super Sundays are special events that take place once during each set of art exhibitions. This week’s event will be led by Madeline Conway, a fourth-year in art and technology, and Dora Rodriguez, a self-taught artist.

“We’re creating a textile installation for people to interact with, deconstruct and reconstruct as ‘wearables’ however they see fit,” Conway said.

The studio will explore Oldham’s fashions, in conversation with his exhibition “All of Everything,” and allow participants to explore different textiles and materials.

“Seeing what’s in the gallery circuit recently, we’ve found that we’ve fallen into this clear, craft lineage,” Conway said. “Just really using whatever materials are around and utilizing that for self-expression and exploring gender and exploring all sorts of cultural subversions.”

Rodriguez said the event will allow people to interact with one another and be inspired to engage with different items to create wearable objects and clothing by gluing, sewing and taping, among other methods.

“People are going to come in there and do things that we didn’t even think about,” Rodriguez said. “There’s this uncontrollable element that is almost always left to the people who are going to come and participate and play with us.”

For Conway, the art studio will open up space to converse about clothing and reclaim clothing as a tool of self-expression for those who visit.

“Really what I want people to leave with is a courage to take things apart around them and to really, critically deconstruct things around them,” Conway said.

Rodriguez said she hopes the event not only resembles Oldham’s work, but the community he has built throughout his career.

“I think what’s most inspiring about Todd Oldham’s fashion is the whole community that is behind him,” Rodriguez said. “That is what we’re trying to build at our workshop — a community of people working on things themselves and working on things together.”

The event will take place 12 p.m. on March 18 at the Mershon Auditorium. Admission is free.