germination: the avant-garden body-sculptures (2011)

Philip was asked to create a performance for LuckyPDF - a South London artist collective collaborating with Barbican Centre to create a live streaming art-led programme. Eight artists including Philip Li, Natalie Marie Dray, Ed Fornieles, Callum Hill, Eddie Peake, Dominik Salter-Dvorak, Daniel Swan and Amalia Ulman - each responded to the possibilities and constraints of the space and the timescale of the four hour public event.

‘Germination: The Avant-Garden Body-Sculptures’ was a live-sculpture performance filmed in the Barbican Conservatory. It represented personal growth and treating one’s body like a sculpture. This piece of work allowed Philip to revisit his use of plastics. Having explored plastic wrap to keep clay fresh in his live-making performances, this body-sculpture represented the packaging of one’s identity.

To create the flower outfit, Philip worked closely with Artist Gardener, from Area 10, an artist-led space in Peckham that was known for its challenging new approaches to art, hybrid art forms and collaborations. The flowers would blossom and wither within the day, referencing Alexander McQueen’s 2007 Sarabande collection depiction of beauty, decay and death.

My body-sculptures are a meeting point for different ideas and components, free of any gender-constricting fashions and politics. My body-sculptures aren't 'fashion' - but they do share similar notions of identity and escapism. - Philip Li