Paper Dress (Detroit, 2016)
Proof that you don’t need a needle and thread to create avant-garde fashion.
This sculptural garment was created during an art residency in Detroit, inspired by my earlier studies at Central Saint Martins, where I took the course Designing a Capsule Collection. Constructed entirely out of painted paper, the dress merges couture sensibility with a raw, ephemeral aesthetic—reimagining fashion as a performative, site-specific expression.
Set against Detroit’s decaying industrial beauty, the photoshoot becomes a visual dialogue between fragility and resilience, color and ruin, body and urban wilderness.
SheWolf (2024)
Ceramic Wearables, Performance, Myth Reimagined
SheWolf is a performative sculptural work created for a ceramics class focused on wearables, weaving together Roman mythology, feminist resistance, and embodied ritual. Drawing inspiration from the legend of Romulus and Remus, raised by a She-Wolf - I reimagined the tale through the lens of contemporary power structures, where the true strength of society lies not in patriarchal systems, but in the women who birth, nurture, and protect life.
The costume consisted of hand-crafted ceramic breasts and a dress sewn from recycled fur: fierce, raw, and maternal.
During the performance, I held a mirror to the audience, asking: “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the strongest of them all?” - subverting the fairy tale trope of vanity and feminine submission. Instead of invoking the image of a Disney princess, I channeled the archetype of the awakened woman: powerful, sexual, sovereign. I spoke of the feminine as a force capable of bringing forth life, standing against injustice, and enduring beyond collapse.
I then placed the mirror on the ground and, to a relentless rhythmic count of the audience, began doing pushups - embodying the raw physical endurance women are so often forced to carry in silence. I continued until my body gave out, collapsing in surrender and defiance: an offering of sweat and breath to the collective struggle for protection, dignity, and sacredness of life.
Turkey Shoot (2024)
Performance Costume, Political Intervention, Street Theater
Presented at the Metro Gala, May 13, 2024
🏆 Winner: Miss Subway ‘24
"Turkey Shoot" is a wearable performance piece born from my personal history and present-day political urgency. Growing up under a communist regime, I inherited the legacy of subversive expression—where humor, absurdity, and double meanings allowed artists to bypass censorship. In today’s America, amidst a climate of silencing dissent—especially around the U.S.-funded genocide in Gaza and the violent crackdown on student protests—I returned to that mode of resistance.
The tent dress, constructed onsite in ten minutes as a live action at KostumeKult’s Metro Gala (a subversive counter-event to the Met Gala), is at once ridiculous and deeply charged. It flirts with camp and chaos, inviting laughs—until its title, Turkey Shoot, snaps the viewer into confrontation.
In American slang, a “turkey shoot” refers to a one-sided massacre—evoking both the Israeli military’s onslaught on Gaza and the brutal police response to peaceful U.S. student protestors. The expression can also imply senseless confusion, echoing the audience’s initial bewilderment at the sight of a costumed turkey emerging from a tent in a subway-themed gala.
This piece is protest through performance: I wore a PRESS vest, scrawled “PEACE” and “DON’T SHOOT” across my turkey decoy headpiece, invited participants into the tent, and smeared myself with white acrylic paint—mock-turkey-crap—as the final gesture.
By claiming the satirical crown of Miss Subway '24, I dedicated my win to the brave students across America who, where global institutions have failed, are standing up against genocide and injustice. This work is for them.
