Party Dress Party by Dew Igworia

Party Dress Party by Dew Igworia Friday, September 20th Open Studios, 2 – 7pm Party Dress Party 9pm – 12am Open mic at 10pm Wear your best party dress for a dance party and celebration starting at 9pm. All are invited to bring a poem, song, question, list, story or other performance to the open mic at 10pm. Recent Flux Factory Artist-in-Residence, poet and designer Dew Igworia, has been working on a series of party dresses that celebrate and honor cherished garments that she collected over years, which helped form her identity. These dresses connected her to a realm of fantasy and an expansiveness of self, but were lost in the removal of a storage unit due to financial insecurity. Recreating these garments summons not only a multiplicity of Igworia’s selves, but meaningful friendships and life trajectories that, even if never realized, still hold weight in memory and fondness. Party Dress Party and Dew Igworia’s practice seeks to understand the feminine body. Through textiles and garments, she investigates the material process of moving from a girl to a woman, as well as the slippage between these two states. How is personal style used to define these categories, and how does celebration itself shift for feminine people both individually and collectively? Party Dress Party is also a tribute to a joyous masculinity that was embodied by Igworia’s father and brother; The two central men in her rearing, who opened space for her to choose how she exists within femininity.