Project R-16430

Dressing the Page: Fashion as Graphic Disruption in Contemporary Visual Culture (Research)

This PhD project investigates how graphic design and fashion converge to transform the clothed body into a contested cultural surface where identity, desire, and social belonging are negotiated. In contemporary urban environments, clothing operates as a mobile graphic interface through which individuals communicate visually with strangers, navigating visibility, anonymity, and social recognition. Drawing on semiotics, psychoanalytic theory, and cultural studies, the research conceptualizes garments, logos, and graphic interventions as a form of "psychic skin" mediating tensions between self-expression and consumer culture's normative pressures. Building on the concept of Contratopia—spaces where contradiction and care coexist—the project explores how artistic and design practices can disrupt homogenized visual landscapes and open temporary spaces for resistance, repair, and collective imagination. Through artistic research, case studies, and practice-based experimentation, the project examines how graphic and sartorial surfaces can function as sites of minor yet meaningful interventions in public space, enabling new forms of embodied communication, ethical visibility, and social connection.

01 February 2026 - 31 January 2030