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The use of clothes to define, defend and defy societal conventions is at the center of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) presents SCAD AT MIAMI – Theater of Self: An Exploration of Identity, featuring works by  Daniel Lismore and photography by SCAD graduate student Bin Feng (M.F.A. Photography) that I previewed last week.  

The core of the exhibition is a phalanx of 20 Daniel Lismore life-size mannequins festooned in his spectacularly designed creations that are accompanied by five light boxes of photos of Lismore taken by New York-based photographer Colin Douglas Gray. These five featured looks are also included in Lismore’s upcoming monograph, published by Skira Rizzoli in collaboration with SCAD entitled Daniel Lismore: Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Already Taken, due out for international release in February 2017.

As I walked around each exciting ensemble, I realized that I could spend hours looking at Daniel Lismore ‘s creations and still not be able to fathom all the intricacies involved in creating them.   

Accompanying Limore’s works, Bin Feng’s self-portraits of himself living a stylized version of the  “American Dream” offer profound insights to the subjects of class, race and gender from a non-Western perspective. This inclusion of Feng’s works could not have been more timely as the recent brutal election season has shown that we Americans have vastly different interpretations of what those “dreams” mean as well how we should attain them. 

Also included are works from SCAD graduates including exquisite furniture designed Kalin Asenov and Eny Lee Parker,  thrilling paintings by Whitney Wood Bailey and  gorgeous lighting fixtures with embroidered cotton corded shades by April Rivers Locke.   

In addition to all this, SCAD AT MIAMI also is showcasing the world’s first ever virtual reality musical “Say It With Music”, produced &* written by Joshua Howard and directed and performed by SCAD students.  Fortunately, Howard was on hand along with SCAD student Lubomir Kocka to walk me through the process of getting set up and viewing this amazing production.

This totally immersive experience was extraordinary – it felt like I was not watching a musical as so much as being a silent participant .  While you will have to go to the exhibition to experience this, you can see a “behind the scenes” look here .

Here are more pics from the exhibition: 

Details are as follows (corrected from original post on 12/11/16):

Theater of Self

Dec. 2-13

11–6 p.m. daily

SCAD AT MIAMI

1601 N. Miami Ave.

Miami, Florida

Make sure to see this before it closes if you are in the area! 

Photo Credit: Simone Todd