Bianca Bulley

The Stitchery Collective, founded in 2010, is a group of fashion, art and performance practitioners based in Brisbane, Australia. Our work draws on our diverse individual interests including installation, costume design and making, fashion, art exhibitions and curation, research, innovative fashion design, education and performance making. Collectively we are inspired by the potential of creative design practice to connect individuals and develop vibrant and inclusive communities. Since 2016 The Stitchery Collective has been creating a series of events inspired by Leigh Bowery. The events incorporate dancing, performances, posing, a costume parade and crownings for the best costumes. The critical potential of Bowery’s practice speaks clearly to our collective ethos, with his work being simultaneously challenging and joyous. Recognising the event’s performative nature, and place in the queer cultural scene, we prioritise showcasing the creative work of Brisbane artists, and the attending public. The events emphasise the significance of costume in enabling joy, building community and radically questioning dominant paradigms around gender and the body, an empowering ethic that celebrates diversity and inclusivity. Creating a space where people can explore and publicly present new subjectivities, an essential aspect for the event is the imaginative and physical space held to celebrate participants and their costumes. This is done through the costume parade – the highlight of the night’s program - and the extensive documentation collected of the event. As paraders emerge from the crowd, perform for a time while an MC provides commentary and guidance, and then melt back into the audience, the ‘performers’ and the ‘public’ at this event can be understood as one and the same, further enabling a sense of belonging amongst all attendees, and drawing attention to the creativity and diversity of their costumes. This costume parade noticeably charges the energy, cohesiveness, and community feel of the event.Photographers, videographers and selfie walls make up a significant part of the entertainment and experience of the party. This extends the event boundaries, by capturing the performances, interactions and experiments and later sharing it via social media, an archiving important not only in its own right in recording queer culture, but also to prompt community discussion, reflection and further connection. This public sharing also taps into the potential of the selfie, photos and social media as a place of political and social resistance: for those who have been the objects of the gaze of the privileged, to assume agency and fashion a gaze of their own choosing. The visual documentation also connects these costumed participants deeply to Bowery’s own image-making practice and legacy.<br/

Throughout history daring women and men have slashed, embellished and bifurcated their way to resistance through politicised fashion. From Amelia Bloomer’s pants of freedom to Rudy Geinrich’s topless monokini, fashion has been used as a tool of rebellion. Through this performance the Stitchery Collective explore the history of counter fashion and examine how some of Brisbane's local creatives are challenging the fashion status quo. Drawing on fashion history and cultural studies, this live performance on the Brisbane Powerhouse's Turbine Platform brings to life five key historical moments of rebellious fashion. Aligning these moments in history with local emerging practitioners, lending weight to their small acts of rebellion; as these practitioners look towards ideas of slow fashion, localism, sustainability, practices of use, and cultural significance.

Inspired by performance artist, queer icon and costume lover Leigh Bowery, the stitchery collective, in collaboration with musician and producer Sullivan, has curated a series of events encouraging radical dress up. These immersive and celebratory occasions emphasise the performativity of dress, and the significance of costume as a way to enable social risk taking and experimentation. In the lead-up to the events a series of visual and video provocations are distributed to attendees. These are intended not only to inspire individual costume creativity, but also to highlight Leigh’s continuing influence in the fashion imaginary, contemporary media and drag culture, a lineage often unacknowledged by the former two. The costumes created by the attending public are challenging, often both to wear and to social, gender and body norms. They are a reflection of queer cultures of costume, emphasising the aesthetics of artifice and the drag tradition of “hairarchy” (Edwards 2014, 150), the e...

Inspired by performance artist, queer icon and costume lover Leigh Bowery, the Stitchery Collective, in collaboration with musician and producer Sullivan, has curated a series of events encouraging radical dress up. These immersive and celebratory occasions emphasise the performativity of dress, and the significance of costume as a way to enable social risk taking and experimentation. In the lead-up to the events a series of visual and video provocations are distributed to attendees. These are intended not only to inspire individual costume creativity, but also to highlight Leigh’s continuing influence in the fashion imaginary, contemporary media and drag culture, a lineage often unacknowledged by the former two. The costumes created by the attending public are challenging, often both to wear and to social, gender and body norms. They are a reflection of queer cultures of costume, emphasising the aesthetics of artifice and the drag tradition of “hairarchy” (Edwards 2014, 150), the e...

From Home, With Love (2015) featured as part of the State Library of Queensland’s, Distant Lines: Queensland voices of the First World War exhibition,that explored the experiences of those on the front line and at home. The installation was based off of research into the State Library of Queensland's collection of records, objects and personal correspondence from WWI. The interactive installation combined sound works and garments to evoke domestic spaces and lived relationships. Visitors were invited to feel and wear cloth made heavy with memories, and to join the group effort in crafting for comfort.