Clothes for Living and Dying - Margareta Kern 

Ana (Jennifer Lopez Dress), Graduation Dresses series, Margareta Kern 2006

Margareta Kern

Clothes for Living and Dying brings together two interrelated projects, raising questions and exploring the relationship of clothing to social, cultural and gendered constructions of identity.

‘Graduation Dresses’ is an ongoing project consisting of a series of photographs Kern takes of young women, who have recently graduated from secondary schools in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their dresses, made by the artist’s mother, are based on images found on the internet and in fashion magazines, of celebrities wearing haute couture dresses.

‘Clothes for Death’ (Odjeca za Smrt) is an ongoing research based project documenting women in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina who prepare clothes in which they wish to be buried. Deeply moved upon hearing about this little known and private custom Kern set out to research it further. The resulting work intimately engages with the lives of women whose identities have been shaped by turbulent historical, political and cultural currents.