LI-MA Presents: Switching Code and Clothes
Wednesday, 31 May, 2023 at LAB111, Amsterdam (LAB2)
Programme: 20:00
Price: 7,50 euros // students 5,00 euros // Cineville
Get your tickets HERE

LI-MA teams up with curators Ka-Tjun Hau and Manique Hendricks to present a screening programme on Wednesday, 31 May. Central to their selection of works is the notion of code-switching and the role clothes and other visual features play within the concept of identity. Code-switching is the adaptation of various 'languages' in different contexts; how you talk, move, and present yourself to others in various different situations. These adaptations are based on conscious decisions based on individual expression, as well as unconscious survival mechanisms as a means of protection to blend into a dominant culture.

The video works of the evening take you into different settings. From the intimate domestic atmosphere to the public streets and in the underground clubs. They show how shapeable and applicable language and identity are in different contexts. And how you can deflect yourself to others with that, and at the same time wear it like it's truly yours.

Lova Yu will do a live performance titled This could be us, but u playing as part of programme.
Lova,
just a poet who likes to eat
frozen pineapple

In Tagged by Julika Rudelius, young adolescents are portrayed while talking about their outfits. Wearing specific fashion brands are essential in their appearance to the outside world, using their physical appearance to break free from generalizations about (first, second, third) immigrant generations in the Netherlands. What do you see first? Someone’s outfit or their cultural background? Ubiquitous goods like Prada shoes and Gucci belts become transcultural vessels of communication. 

As a teaser for this screening programme, we’re happy to share the video Fiorucci made me Hardcore by Mark Leckey. 

Fiorucci made me Hardcore has been on YouTube since June 2011 and has since been viewed more than 324,000 times. It consists of a collage of images from the UK's underground dance scene. Chronologically, the video begins with footage from the 1970s as Northern Soul (working-class soul music originating from African-American soul that was transferred to the north of England in the 1960s) was on the rise, followed by footage of the first big (acid) house parties and raves in the late eighties and early nineties. The title refers to the Italian fashion brand Fiorucci, which is according to Leckey: “something as trite and throwaway and exploitative as a jeans manufacturer (Fiorucci) can be taken by a group of people and made into something totemic, and powerful, and life-affirming. Watch the video HERE.

Photos by Pieter Kers | www.beeld.nu