Martine Syms Q&A

“I was just feeling myself.”

The second collaboration between Martine Syms and PAM launches with a self-shot video where layers are peeled and gestures are unplanned. We asked Syms some (more) questions to mark the occasion.

Your work often plays with visibility and erasure. When you applied pages from the zine, your paintings and personal items to these clothes, did it feel like self-exposure, self-mythology, or something else entirely?

My work is often self-reflexive, it feels like the collection is another refraction of my practice. It felt like an extension of my work, while also expanding my vocabulary. I love fashion. I used to work at a clothing company and I’ve made my own clothes since I was a child. I often include custom garments in my exhibitions and artworks. It’s interchangeable for me. I like seeing these images take on a new life and form. The images are there to incite curiosity! They’ll become part of people’s lives in a way I hadn’t imagined when creating the initial works.

What’s a hidden detail in this collection that only the ‘real ones’ will catch?

Breathable mesh because I'm a jock. Rolling papers because although I don’t smoke anymore, I still identify as a weedhead.

It’s mad that some of the garments feature the contents of your bag. What’s the most unexpectedly sentimental thing in your bag right now, and what’s its backstory?

When I bought my house my best friend gave me a vintage Mazzy Star keychain as a housewarming because we love them. It was the sweetest present. Have you heard Hope’s girl band?! My friend Sophia gave me an orange lighter that has Lisa Simpson’s exploding head and said “This is you.” I lost it in Brazil, but someone gave me a new lighter that says Voyeur.

Pages from one of your books were featured on some of the collaboration prints. Can you tell us more about it?

Stills from Girlfriends TV Show, FOX news, Basquiat quotes, other quotes, scripts, words, text, lists, schedules, Family matters, Crumpled paper.

It was a book called Show Bible that was part of my contribution to the New Museum Triennial in 2015. My piece was called S1:E1 and it was a giant collage of archival materials, and I made a video called A Pilot For A Show About Nothing that was like a treatment/essay for a fictional TV show about my life, She Mad. When a show is in development they make these books, their bible for the universe of the show. It was a play on that.

You created a short video to showcase the collection. Any notes here? Arms stretch, hair shaking is my favourite part/feeling.

This video was fun to make. I layered the entire collection and cut through taking off each piece. None of the gestures were planned, I was just feeling myself.

When I think about your work, particularly Notes on Gesture and your NTS show Ccartalk, if I’m not wrong there’s an interest in the performance of self in everyday life… I wanted to get your take on the performative dimensions of style and behaviour, and maybe how that impacted what you contributed to this collection.

Style is performance but it also is the self. This collection can be worn in many different ways. As a statement or as an everyday piece. The jacket has two sides. I wanted to make a collection that possesses the ability to change based on the wearer. Clothing affects mood. Every single day. Wearing this collection, personally, reminds me to ENJOY.