August to October 2026

Residency project - HIDE

I was asked to question how garments can become a protection or second skin. The goal was to understand whether textiles and clothes today can carry hidden forms of communication, given the constant exposure we are subject to — both online and offline.
The idea of HIDE as a safe space immediately took shape in my mind as a form of liberation and self-expression, rather than defense or isolation. I imagined HIDE as a materialisation of our identity through objects that belong to us. A skin in which we feel safe because it carries our most comforting memories, and a safe space because, through its tactile properties, we can connect with our inner self. This second skin needed to establish an emotional connection with the user through personal experiences and memory.

Memory and emotion are extremely important to me as drivers for connection with physical matter. My experience with upcycling and altering garments originated in 2020, while I was studying fashion design in Milan and found myself spending a lot of time at home because of the pandemic. Being in close contact with a pile of textiles and clothes I had hoarded over the past 3 years was a wake-up call — moreover, I was going to move out soon and needed to detach myself from most of those items. Even keeping a small piece of fabric from each item was meaningful to me, as it allowed me to re-establish a connection with a tactile memory of a past time or place after I moved.

My attachment to textiles turned, in fact, into a collection with visual and tactile qualities that I could access through interacting with the artefacts I created. I used to make a patchwork-like design, and each patch of fabric was a portal to specific moments of my life.
I took HIDE as an opportunity to understand how others engage with their own material collections and memories, and how I could embed these hidden meanings into a wearable artefact.