'Chinoiserie' means European eager for the Chinese based on exotic fantasies, still surviving from the rococo times. The Finnish Chinese-translator Pertti Nieminen has said about 'chinoiserie': The fairytale 'The Nightingale' of H.C. Andersen was as good an information as decorative pictures on English porcelaine plates.?
'Baltiquerie' again is a similar word developed by Kaarina Ormio referring to the Baltic Sea, its surroundings, and for the Baltic States.
The words chinoiserie and baltiquerie define Ormio's dresses. The artist told that she wants the exhibition to be like a wardrobe where she could choose the suitable dress when leaving for a journey. Ormio's work is based on the trips where she does performances dressed up as a fairytale princess. As a travelling princess she is like a western explorer and imperialist, but in a mild and a bit playful sense. She often sews the princess dress on the basis of the local taste with a wish to conform with the strange culture. Ormio describes: 'When conquering a country I also become conquered myself. By sewing a dress in a strange country and dressing up in it I try to get inside the strangeness.'
Dresses for the beaches of the Baltic Sea
The dresses hang on hangers in the exhibition space have been used by Ormio on her journeys to the surroundings of the Baltic Sea. The several years' performance project 'Prince Betelgeuze, Princess Algieba and Princess Bellatrix Travel around the Baltic Sea' Ormio did in co-operation with the Estonian Jaan Pärnamäe and the Norwegian Elin T. Sørensen. They visited different countries on the coasts of the Baltic Sea, in the countryside, in cities and on festivals, dressed up as fairytale princesses and a fairytale prince.
By means of performance the artists created 'tableau vivants', living
pictures, from the fairytale world of the childhood. In addition to the
dresses, the exhibition shows also a video documenting the trips.
The dress for China
By sewing the dress 'Chinoiserie' shown in the exhibition Ormio makes
herself ready for a journey to China next autumn. In the remote
province of Yunnan she aims to explore the connection of the
'chinoiserie' imaginary to the reality, and to sew another version of
the dress for a Chineses princess, where the western fantasies have an
opportunity to melt in the Chinese ones. Plenty of minority peoples of
China live in the Yunnan province. Ormio aims to get to know their
traditional clothing and create her own versions on it.
In the provincial locations Ormio hopes to get a bit farther from the
'chinoiserie'. But does a Chinese Princess exist? At least her head is
decorated with a ribbon in stead of a crown.
Markus Tuormaa
