International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 192
Submission ID: 247
Submission UUID: b7b30f96-2057-4f70-a35b-cf42807bd0d0

Created: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 17:54
Completed: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 18:29
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:14

Remote IP address: 82.135.199.239
Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No
Current page: webform_confirmation
Given name Justė
Surname Tarvydė
Email juste.tarvyde@vda.lt
I understand that by submitting this form, I consent to the use of my data for the purposes of the 2026 Forum on Artistic Research'. Yes
I agree to the terms of service. Yes
Title Whispers from the Seams: Artistic Research and the Minor Language of Fashion
Format Project presentation
Main language English
Abstract This contribution presents Labeltry, an artistic research practice that engages clothing labels as minoritised linguistic and conceptual worlds. Although ubiquitous within global fashion systems, labels operate as marginal texts: concealed within garments, instrumentalised by branding, and subordinated to the visual and economic logics of platform capitalism. Their language is optimised for circulation, legibility, and desirability, yet rarely acknowledged as a site of knowledge.

Through processes of collecting, archiving, cutting, and recomposing discarded labels into poetic micro-texts, Labeltry repositions these fragments as epistemic residues. The project treats fashion labels as sedimented carriers of cultural memory, encoding geographies of labour, gendered scripts, affective economies, and normative ideals of value and recognition. Drawing on Lacan’s concept of the gaze, Sara Ahmed’s theory of affective circulation, and Adorno’s negative dialectics, the practice sustains contradiction rather than resolving it. By fragmenting and rearticulating commercial language, it interrupts the homogenising tendencies of maximisation, simplification, and aesthetic standardisation.

In doing so, Labeltry proposes minor poetic gestures as counter-models to algorithmic flattening and instrumental reason. Artistic research here functions as a method of recovering and transforming precarious conceptual worlds embedded in everyday material culture, foregrounding the fragile yet persistent knowledge contained in the seams of fashion.
Link to the Exposition https://www.researchcatalogue.net/shared/1914e424e74f9c467dfcc5a36f44626f
Image 11_JusteT.jpg
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • For two decades, my creative field was prestigious fashion magazines, where I developed a career as a fashion editor (writing) and stylist. I have an ongoing scholarly practice as an associate professor and an art PhD candidate at Vilnius Academy of Arts. The focal point of my doctoral artistic research is the nexus between art and fashion, between text and texture. The phenomenon of fashion is deeply imprinted in our collective memory and cultural imagination. I investigate how shifts in context influence the perception and significance of fashion objects. At the core of this research lies fashion as a medium of conceptual artistic expression. I’m wondering: how can fashion artefacts be reactivated through creative practice.
Previous presentations or iterations of the research LABELTRY was presented at the joint exhibition "Compo(s)t & Detritus" at the gallery "Titanikas" in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Publication in an international peer-reviewed journal "Landing". DOI: https://doi.org/10.37522/z22pna81
Additional information
Spatial and technical requirements Scree, PC, magnetic boards
Potential risks or ethical concerns None
Create a user account for SAR 2026 No