The Powerhouse Research Fellowship
March 2022
Project Title: Futuring weather: Thinking, making and wearing through the MAAS weather archive.
Dr Todd Robinson is an interdisciplinary researcher, artist and Senior Lecturer, UTS School of Design. His research specialises in the relationship between fashion and the body with respect to fashion design practice, theory, technology and ethics. His research stems from long-term engagement with issues of fashion and the body informed by his experiences working as a fashion designer in the 1990s and early 2000s. He has an international reputation publishing in Fashion Theory and The International Journal of Fashion Studies and Fashion practice. Robinson has a background as an award-winning fashion designer, while over the last decade he has developed a reputation working in sculpture, receiving widespread recognition through numerous solo and group exhibitions and projects in Australia, China, Europe and the United States. He has completed significant public art commissions in China and Australia. His works are held in the public collections of Ipswich Art Gallery, Queensland; National Gallery of Victoria; Artbank; and Woollahra Council.
The project aims to generate dialogue about climate change, the future and our place in the world. The specific focus is the relationship between historical, comtemporary and future climate and weather. The project involves study of a number of historical weather and climate associated artefacts held in the Powerhouse fashion and science and technology collections; and then re-imagining those items from the perspective of future weather scenarios associated with climate change. The project considers these items as part of a cultural, social, corporeal and meteorological milieu to gain insight in how daily weather shapes the embodied and affective dimension of everyday life. However such insights also have the potential to catalyse propositional thinking and creative practice to explore and speculate upon possible weather futures. The principal outcome of the project revolves around a series of speculative fashion, clothing and accessory designs that enable discussion about possible weather futures. Associated outcomes include a series of video interviews which feature the speculative designs addressing climate change through the lens of fashion and dress.