←

Subject to dress regulations, social expectations, projections and assumptions, heeled shoes come in a variety of formal expressions. Each signifying a different character, they span themes from limitations and independence, sensuality and constriction, poetic symbolism and political statement.

The objects from ELEVATED POLITICS address functionality and representation, the different personas contained within slight variations, changes in perception of the self and the other. The edition was produced and published as a collaboration between Julia Bajanova and Atelier Aïcha Abbadi, with fabrication support by Cornelia Waldau.

Fascinated with ephemeral materiality, the interplay between the real and the imaginary, Julia Bajanova’s works exist between two worlds. Her signature tulle with defined seams act as segmenting strokes in translucent textile paintings applied to the body.

Julia Bajanova presents an edition of unique works which are a continuation of her previous explorations around the heeled shoe. What interests her is how translated into soft materiality, the constructed shoe becomes a metaphor for all social constructs, illusory and brought back to a base reality when looked at with clarity.

Barely existent in an intermediate expression between garment and nudity, the body is both covered and exposed, retreating from defined perception. Applied to shoes as symbolic objects, they point towards an ambivalence in our standpoints and the standing we have within society.

ELEVATED POLITICS ^{Boxed Edition, 2021}

ELEVATED POLITICS, 2021
Julia Bajanova with Aïcha Abbadi

grey tulle heeled shoes by Bajanova, off-white Nappa leather glove, in glazed birchwood box with sliding lid, text by Abbadi printed inside lid

box: 33 x 33 x 6.5 cm; glove: size 9; shoes:
size 39-41
edition of XXI copies, each unique
Signed and numbered


published by Atelier Aïcha Abbadi
fabrication support: Cornelia Waldau







next project close

2021 – Fashion Positions, Tempelhof Airport, Berlin (DE)





I. FLIGHT ATTENDANT
II. RECEPTIONIST
III. GUEST
IV. POLE DANCER
V. FACTORY WORKER
VI. TRAVELLER
VII. STUDENT
VIII. POLITICIAN
IX. MANAGER
X. RAVER
...