SIMON LEWANDOWSKI

Copyright 2009

THE CELEBRANT SUIT
The suit* is a literal extension of the balaclava of the terrorist or bank robber, ensuring the celebrant's anonymity during the theft of Time or the hijacking of Occasion.

On the chest are light emitting diodes set to display the passage of time, counting down to the zero point of Singularity when the passage takes place from one state of Being-Significant to another and the potential flips over to reveal itself as the previous.
The suit has a flame-resistant pocket for fireworks with which to mark the location of the Singularity for spectators and a secret pocket for the drugs necessary to case the trauma and stress of Transition which the celebrant must take upon him/herself.
The head-cover is equipped with earpiece and speaker leading to an umbilical jackplug for the invasion of communication networks.
Other functions are built into the suit, which by their nature cannot be revealed.

Available in SM/L/XL

*The Celebrant Suit was originally made for the exhibition "A Sense Of Occasion" a touring show of specially-comissioned works by a surprising mixture of artists and craftspeople curated by Julia Ellis for Craftspace Touring and the Midland Arts Centre in Birmingham. The brief was for "significant objects marking diverse contemporary occasions". When Julia approached me I think I still had a hangover from New Year's Eve 1999/2000 so I was in the right frame of mind. The show toured for over two years to loads of venues. In all I think the work got seen by a very different audience to the one I'm used to.

In the catalogue Julia wrote: "(the)Celebrant Suit brings to mind a low-tech ancestral robot with physical countenance reduced to a form of gruesome skin. The cultural antecedents of the suit are Nigerian masquerade costumes and Parangoles - wearable Brazilian artworks. The suit has a spirit of mock-ethnicity, it is machine- knitted and a repository for electronic gadgetry. As such, it is also an ironic 'precursor' of developments at the cutting edge of product/fashion design; those cyborg-style garments-of-the-future incorporating 'wearable' computers and mobile phones. Made as a multiple, the suit imparts a cynical message with respect to occasions, proposing the possibility of a pre-ordained mechanism for every celebration opportunity..." The designs for the suit are preserved in the form of a knitting machine programme disc and an adaptable cutting pattern (all beautifully assembled by Yvonne Watson, head of the Fashion Knitwear course at Nottingham Trent University.)so we can re-create suits for all shapes and sizes...