Personal Statement | Henri Ping

It simultaneously is everything and nothing: fashion had never mattered to me until the pubescent urge forcibly transformed my passionate eye seeking for artistic meaning; so I would learn that all is a matter of symbolic exchange, like clothes and the body interacting to form an unspoken language. It makes me feel revolutionary and strong.

A year ago, fashion to me meant merely an expression of self and singularity; but now I have evolved to know it for being an institutionalized scope, always withholding the potential to breed commentary. When it comes to figuring out my line and way of evolution: I spent most of my years thus far living on blog sites, role-play video games, and online forums, therefore most of my internal monologue is rooted in diverse opinions on socio-political discourses hindered by a heavy sense of parasocial detachment; take Baudrillard’s idea of Hyperreality, and impulses to question art and culture for its legitimacy and artifice. When matters set foot in my mind, it’s bound to be expelled in some form of art, whether it’d render texture or words. A primitive idea may transform into the play of structure or layering, and eventually end up contextualized by the person wearing it alongside the way it is presented. I want to capture, project, and produce in conjunction with the ever changing society we inhabit.

No two designers should be the same and I want to contribute things that do not yet exist. Roaming the internet as a teenager I have developed specific aesthetic tastes; embodying 3D characters in games has transformed into wanting to create tangible pieces, as a form of expressing self with reference to culture and social energy. Ann Demeulemeester and Junya Watanabe were two of the first and most prominent designers I encountered; one evokes serious sophistication and the other experimental constructive play yet both retained dystopian aesthetics that cultivated my eye for sci-fi elements and a culture in ruins. There is also a factor of morph: I struggle with identity ambiguity as an immigrant who lived in between continents and a nonconformist to both traditional and contemporary ideals. I have vivid visions of musician Arca’s Mutant;Faith show in 2019, where she playfully merges Venezulean heritage and archival transhumanist garments in an ever changing scheme of looks. Much of the same visual motifs titillate my mind, when technology and nature intermix in defiance of interpersonal convolution; I believe garments take on shape and life once put on the body.

I trust fashion as the translator of banality into artistic truth. Collaboration and conversation is like fuel to everything including creation. As a hobby, I contributively write for Coeval Magazine; I find it’s important to imbue the artistic spirit of the current youth within myself. From the sheer virtue of nurturing the diverse projects of others, I become motivated to play with concept and materiality. As long as I’m involved and tethered to our global community there are endless possibilities to mint creative materials. Central Saint Martins’ fashion program had always seemed to me as the cutting edge of experimental talents and the frontier of like-minded trailblazers. Being surrounded by such fervor is the most I could ask for. Resources are famously scarce for art students, and for this reason moving to London and joining the foundation course this year has taught me the art of resourcefulness in how to execute my visions in what are sometimes unorthodox ways. Scavenging charity shops, asking for friendly favours of classmates, finding equipment around facebook marketplace: I think constraints and the psychology of limitation encourages growth. I envision the undergraduate program to bolster my creative energy into something bigger and all encompassing. The fantasy should be uncontained.

Most importantly, the foundations course has introduced me to a community of driven creatives. We all think differently, and that alchemy is a fresh take on the algorithmic consensus that’s omnipresent on the internet. About the worship of change there is something forward-looking and free.

Personal Statement

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