An exhibition by Pia Interlandi exploring textile decomposition, bodies in dress and death, and the material afterlives of clothing. The evening included a film screening followed by a panel discussion.
Interlandi is an Associate Professor of Creative Practice at Curtin University and founder of Garments for the Grave, a practice at the intersection of fashion, funerary care, and forensic research.
The evening opened with a screening of Death Down Under (64 mins), directed by Kathy High and Cynthia White — the documentary record of The Pig Project, developed during Interlandi’s doctoral research at RMIT and a 2009 artist residency at SymbioticA, in partnership with forensic entomologist, Professor Ian Dadour. Twenty-one pig bodies, used as human analogues, were washed, dressed, shrouded, buried, and exhumed over one year in Western Australia, bringing fashion, funerary practice, and forensic science together to study how burial garments decompose. The film captures not only the research but the care, labour, and relationships that sustained it.
Following the screening, a panel discussion – What Has Taken Root? – asked what has changed across death care, textile waste, ecology, forensics, and creative practice research in the nearly two decades since.
Joining Interlandi: Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (SymbioticA), who helped take the practice out of the fashion studio; Ian Dadour, forensic entomologist and original scientific collaborator; Paola A. Magni, fellow doctoral researcher and current collaborator; and Sue Anne Ware, early mentor and advocate for design research engaging with death and care. High and White join remotely – more than observers, they accompanied the work through every stage.
Through research, design, and direct work with clients, they explore how we dress, care for, and relate to the body in death. We look forward to welcoming you.
