The Selkie’s New Clothes

Costumes: Selena S Kuzman
Headpiece: Caroline Bury
Concept: Selena S Kuzman
Year: 2018- 2020
Commissioned: EventScotland and Orkney International Science Festival

“The coastline, always changing with the tide, is where seals and people meet as selkies. It is a nowhere place and yet it is all they have.”

Hauntingly, beautifully, the old legend of the selkie re-emerges to express the deep challenges of the present day. The story of shapeshifting, of the skin which enables the transition between the human and natural worlds, crossing the uncertain boundary zone of the shore, is one of transformation. This performance piece by Selena S Kuzman, specially created for the Year of Coasts and Waters, merges in a poetic way the folk stories of the selkie people with the transformation of waste materials and our deep connection with the sea and the land, and our quest to find a world in which we are at home.

These were two separate projects with the same theme. In September 2018 the Selkie’s New Clothes costumes were on display as a public window installation during Orkney Science Festival, comprising male and female selkies.  The third Selkie costume was created during the pandemic in 2020 and was featured in a filmed performance piece premiered on YouTube for Orkney Science Festival.

The story of shapeshifting, of the skin which enables the transition between the human and natural worlds, crossing the uncertain boundary zone of the shore, is one of transformation.

In order to shapeshift they had to cast off their sealskins. Within these magical skins lay the transformative power to return to seal form, and thus to the sea.

And there is a similar transformative power in the process of creating selkie costumes  by animating pre-loved and discarded textiles from a two-dimensional flat surface into a three-dimensional object.

3D Shibori is a technique for adding texture and shaping textiles by exploiting the thermoplastic qualities of some synthetic fabrics in order to manipulate surfaces. Items are wrapped in plastic, secured with thread and then set with heat, and the process thereby leaves a “memory on cloth” – a permanent record, whether of patterning or texture, of the particular forms of resistance to the change. For fixing the pattern and to create pieces that appear organic, dyeing techniques were used to animate fabric into intricate and delicate shades of grey.

Manipulating the surfaces with 3D Shibori technique is a labour of love, a fascination with the idea that cloth holds the memory of action performed on it, a vehicle for imagination and creativity.

But the Selkie never sheds its skin entirely or forever. The past, present and future is held within it. (As the past is held in pre-loved clothing, the future lies in transforming waste materials into something new and sustainable and the present is the action of doing so.)

In September 2018 the Selkie’s New Clothes costumes were on display as a public window installation during Orkney Science Festival, comprising male and female selkies.

The third Selkie costume was created during the pandemic in 2020 and was featured in a filmed performance piece premiered on YouTube for Orkney International Science Festival.

HOODED BOLERO WITH LONG SLEEVES: The tailored base is constructed from discarded jersey fabric, embellished with HDPE plastic waste. The various processes used when dealing with the plastic included rust dyeing, melting, and cutting to transform them into creative repetitive embellishment elements. The design process used a desaturated colour palette when dyeing HDPE plastic, and the tie dye technique to achieve intricate shades of blue, grey and brown. Each circle piece is individually hand stitched to the base for surface texture details evocative of the barnacle-encrusted rocks.

ECO-COUTURE DRESS: The construction process in imagining the halter neck dress started with the assembly of two separate pieces of pre-loved clothing, the tulle petticoat and shapewear bodysuit. Restoring their components into a new ensemble as a one-piece continued the journey of transformation with dying and texture embellishments from the shibori techniques and the stitching of beads to the surface. For extra volume and flow, layers of pre-loved and discarded chiffon and voile leftover fabrics were sewn in, with each individual piece of fabric being heat-manipulated to create unexpected and organic-like textures.

Exhibition Projects